Car-Struck

[rebeccmeister]

Three people that I know have been hit by cars in the past week, in two separate incidents. In one case, the guilty party fled the scene after pausing long enough for my friends to get his license plate numbers. They presume he was drunk.

Things like this make me sad to live in a place like this, where traffic goes too fast and where people care so little about other people that they drive recklessly.

I'm trying to balance out these frustrations with more positive reflections. The Tour de Fat helped to show me the power of being positive--people are attracted to things that are authentically positive in a way that's fundamentally different from their reaction to negatives.

Sure, I can get worked up when another car whizzes past me going dangerously fast and close. But at the same time, it's a good thing that I am able to ride my bicycle where I need to go. That's worth celebrating.

I keep on toying with the idea of starting a "Slow down, Arizona!" campaign. Apparently there have been measures floated around in the past to reduce speed limits and force people to gaze more carefully at the landscape whirring past. But this campaign isn't actually so much about that as it's about remembering to take the time to enjoy the motions of movement. Velocity IS reflection.

As I rode my bicycle today, I thought about the legacy that this generation and previous generations will leave behind. We live in an era full of labor-saving devices, but what do we do with our saved labor, anyway? Buy gym memberships? Watch TV? Is it really worthwhile to save such labor, or will future generations look back on this time and shake their heads in wonderment over our devotion to our remote controls and our cars?

Comments

[sandokai.livejournal.com]

I just don't get it either. Driving is the most likely way most people will kill themselves and others, and yet they still drive with such danger and disregard. It makes me feel like there's so many people around me who don't care if I die. I hate it.

[boolean263.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about your friends' collisions! (It's far too charitable to the drivers to refer to them as 'accidents.') I hope their injuries aren't serious, and that the drivers get the punishment they deserve. People don't seem to realize that they're sending two tons of steel shooting down the road at murder-weapon velocities with a grand total of about 20 square centimetres of rubber being their only way to control it.

I too am amused/annoyed by the "labour saving" devices we now partake of. Besides giving us more time to watch TV, they raise expectations of what we're able to do in a day. So instead of making our lives easier, they're implicitly forcing us to try and do more!

[earthlingmike.livejournal.com]

I never watch t.v.