Recent community forum seeks solution to unruly motorists.
by Daniel Smiechowski
On Monday, June 23 at Cadman Elementary School a group of concerned neighbors met to discuss traffic calming solutions along the notorious Moraga Avenue. Quite frankly, most of the proposals to make this roadway safer amounted to reinventing the wheel. Since Henry Ford first produced the Model T automobile in 1908 and the preceding years, societies have sang the same old song, that being, how to regulate human behavior.
Having logged over a half million miles on America’s roadways both as a motorist and triathlete, my view is that there exists some fundamental cultural and societal predictors which transcend personal driving behavior. As driving goes, I have been behind the wheel in thirty-two states, France and Africa and have seldom witnessed such egotistical motorists as in our community of Clairemont.
It appears that one’s emotional intelligence is abandoned at the wayside while operating a vehicle on our streets. Drivers become impulsive and seem to comport themselves within some protected refuge, encapsulated in a sheet of steel; they remain a fetus in the mother’s womb with only the placenta as their shield. Looking deeper into a philosophical and psychological sense, I would postulate that the solution to our driving woes lies in the quality of aesthetics or put simply what we value in our lives.
Several years ago while waiting in traffic for the lead runners of the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon to pass, an obese middle aged man in a Mercedes began to spew out more epithets than books in the Library of Congress. Presumably, he was on his way to Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for some comfort food. As the Pogo comic strip character once lamented, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
As far as I’m concerned the San Diego Police Department has no dog in this fight. We the general public and residents of this community need to figure it out ourselves without reinventing the wheel. The problem remains, most folks think within the box much unlike the insertion of a square peg in a round hole. As far as I’m concerned, there exists one sure remedy that has stood the test of time and that is shame. The mere mention of being viewed as an outcast would suffice in arresting the incivility of these miscreants.
Be nice, do good deeds and don’t be a stranger as we at the Clairemont Times value your participation.
Daniel J. Smiechowski has been a resident of Clairemont since 1967 and can be reached atsmiechowskid@aol.com or 858.220.4613
