Don’t Drive… Dumb

by Amalia Halikias

Every morning we get in the car, turn on the radio, and listen to a long list of accidents and delays along commonly used roads and highways.  I never realized how accustomed I had become to this routine until last year.  For the first time, my little sister, Diana, joined us in the early morning car ride to school.  She was 10-years-old at the time and had always walked to school, so she had never heard the list before.

After five silent, tired minutes, Diana turned to me and asked, “Why are there so many accidents?”  I was extremely grumpy and muttered, “Some drivers have little kids nagging them as they drive to work early in the morning.”  Unfazed, Diana replied, “But why doesn’t anyone try to make the system work better?”  I turned to give another cantankerous response and realized that she had a point.  My 10-year-old sister had raised a question that had never before crossed my mind.

I had always taken these occurrences as unpreventable and inevitable.  It is true that a huge number of car accidents occur as a result of drivers who text message, or drive drunk, or simply make stupid mistakes.  However, many are also caused by roads that are badly cared for, ambiguous highway signs, and ineffective traffic lights.

The traffic light patterns don’t make much sense where I live.  Driving at the legally proper speed, we encounter red light after red light.  It may sound like childish complaining at first, but consider the unnecessary traffic that is created every morning.  Consider the rushed mother who is late for work and might make a reckless right-turn.  Consider the near-sighted grandfather who left his glasses at home and can’t tell which exit a highway sign is referring to.

Road safety isn’t a new problem.  Many adults know to avoid specific intersections and circles, because they are so confusing and badly managed that accidents occur almost every day.  Something needs to be done.  I live in an urban area, and I worry to think of the condition that suburban and rural streets are in.  Someone needs to address the situation of our streets.

It isn’t global warming.  It isn’t genocide.  It isn’t the war on terror.  It is a rut in the road in front of an elementary school, or a sign that doesn’t distinguish between the I-95 and the I-495.  It is a problem that exists right outside your front door.  A problem that for some reason we haven’t noticed, that we haven’t fixed.  A problem my little sister saw in the blink of an eye.

Young children have a way of identifying problems and confronting them directly.  Maybe adults are simply more set in their ways, while children have fresh pairs of eyes.  Maybe age and ingenuity are inversely related.  Regardless, I can’t help but think that if the President of the United States had a 10-year-old sister to bother him early in the morning, our country might be run a great deal better.