On Monday night, a black BMW hit and killed a 65-year-old woman in Ballard. The driver: a 35-year-old woman; the victim: walking her dogs on a unmarked crosswalk (that saved the city some money) that has a stop sign. The police believe the driver ignored the sign, which is a very common thing to do. The police also believe the driver was impaired, which, again, is not an unusual condition for a driver (there are lots of influences in our stimulant-dependent culture). On the day the Ballard woman was killed, a boy also lost his life when his father crashed a car in Cle Elum while “under the influence of prescription medication.” Both accidents are not in any way astonishing. They are a regular part of the culture we live in, which has a faith in cars whose intensity can only be described as religious, for it is certainly not practical or rational. When the elderly Ballard woman was hit, one of her dogs (a pug) was injured, and the other one ran into the dark. This terrified dog wasn’t located on the night of accident.
But what made all of this misery possible? The people involved in the accident are apparently not exceptional. The situation itself isn’t shocking, like the recent Ducks tour tragedy in Branson, Missouri. The only remarkable thing about the fatal accident in Ballard is that it’s unremarkable. And the reason it is remarkable is because, precisely, it should be remarkable. How did this happen? How did our culture get here? Why are such deaths not considered of immediate and great importance? If a plane crashes, lots of data is collected from the site. The incident is carefully examined and reviewed by a number of organizations. If flaws are found, they are registered and, if possible, corrected within a short time. Almost immediately after 9/11, we began pulling off our belts and emptying our pockets and taking off our shoes and raising our arms at airports. Flying (which one should do as little as possible for environmental reasons), as a consequence, is very safe. Why is this not the case with cars, the dominant and most dangerous mode of transportation in the US?
The facts: https://t.co/0P9evkrOtS pic.twitter.com/x3OOl9ImjE
— Charles Mudede (@mudede) August 30, 2018
Let’s go back to Ballard. A dog went mad, an elderly woman lost her life, and a young woman ended up in jail. The driver could easily be anyone: you, your sister, your friend, your lover, your mother, your neighbor, a person you went to school with, and so on. But now she is being “held at the King County Jail for investigation of vehicular assault.” And what she did, lots of people do all of the time. Yet, her life (and the only one she has got, as far we can tell) might be permanently ruined. Ordinary people lose their freedoms and ruin the lives of their loved ones because of a common vehicular homicide. Why isn’t there greater fear for what seems to be a very likely way to end up in prison or in the grave?
Only superstition can explain this kind of thing. There is no rational explanation that can penetrate the cult of the car. The culture we live in is not only saturated with positive images and narratives of the driving experience, but has drivers who are so “well waded” (to use George Eliot’s expression) that they’ve lost connection with one of the most important and highly developed features of human animal, and its specific form of socality: the ability to see ourselves in others. The construction of this form of stunted subjectivity is totally cultural, and therefore historical, and therefore not fixed. But because even natural challenges require rational explanations and solutions, the driving mind must—to continue as if nothing has happened when really awful things happen to drivers all of the time (every hour, every day, every week, every year)—appeal to an exception that is, in essence, superstitious.
You do not see yourself in people who are exactly like yourself—for example, the driver in the Ballard accident. These types are not even unlucky; they are somehow marked for tragedy. It was in the cards or tea leaves or thrown bones. That woman in the BMW was going to hit that Ballard woman, no matter what. That father was going to roll the car and kill his son. They are not me. I’m not marked. And thus you enter and start your 4,000 pounds of plastic and steel and travel at 40 mph in a dense city that has many budget-friendly unmarked crosswalks.
Some try to obscure this superstition with an explanation that appears to be reasonable and even justified: A driver under the influence has made a bad life choice. You have choices. Some are bad and some are good. It’s up to you and you alone to make the right decision. People who reason in this way are so well waded that they have no idea that others are actually hearing the words of a fanatic. The terrified dog was later found and is “expected to recover.”
