A Culture of Quick Stoppers
WORDS FROM W.W. January 9, 2020
It’s funny the things you remember decades later. There’s no reason why a certain conversation or moment in time should stay embedded in your memory, but for some reason it keeps being revisited in your mind.
The latest moment that keeps coming back to me is from an episode of Traffic Court, a TV show on the Columbus, Ohio CBS station one night a week back in the 1970’s, usually right after the news and before Jeopardy.
Think Judge Wapner for traffic violations!
For some reason I remember one man in one episode. He had been cited for failure to obey a stop sign. He stood before the judge and the judge asked if he had anything to add about his violation. He replied that in Indiana they had something called a “Quick Stop”. It was a stop, just real quick! The judge imposed the appropriate fine upon Mr. Quick and told him that in Ohio a stop sign means stop!
Lately, I’m thinking that a lot of Indiana people have moved to Colorado Springs because I’ve noticed a lot of “quick stoppers” driving around our streets.
Let me be so controversial as to say that “quick stops” are an indication of how our culture has changed. What???
A stop sign is a momentary halting of our progress and we have become a culture that does not like anyone or anything to tell us to stop what we’re doing. It’s a ripple effect of our sense of entitlement. Not obeying traffic laws is simply a sign of our self-centered idea that the world revolves around “me!”
Speed limits are seen as being suggestions.
Okay! I admit it! I have a tendency to go a few miles over the speed limit…to keep from dying! I’m going 49 in a 45 and cars are whizzing by me like I’m stuck in mud. And, of course, there’s the guy who hangs on your bumper to let you know that you’re impeding his excessive progress.
The number of pedestrians and cyclists killed in this country by drivers in 2019 exceeded 7,000. Fatalities and excessive speed has become such a problem in Colorado Springs that the City Council has made it a matter for their attention.
When entitlement becomes ingrained in our culture’s thinking there is a corresponding adjustment to expected behavior. We make exceptions to the rules and many take on an attitude that says the rules don’t apply to them. In essence, the thinking is that rules are for all those other people, but don’t apply to me.
And, like the Indiana man, we reinterpret what a rule or law means. Don’t get me started on how “Yield” has been reinterpreted, or the emergence of that creation of a crazed road engineer called “the round about!”
And how about texting and driving? One out of every four traffic accidents involve someone who is texting and driving. Wait a minute! Isn’t that against the law? No, it’s just another one of those suggestions from our law enforcement…er, law suggestion people!
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