Fast, Rich, And Out Of Control

by guest columnist Doug Nufer

(LAST TIME, our guest columnist began a bus trek through Mexico. Today, more non-travelogue thoughts on the topic.)

TALK IS CHEAP, anecdotal evidence is practically worthless, and discussions of traffic tend to veer from the personal to the philosophical and back again, in a hit or miss attempt to get a grip on a topic which often seems to control our lives.

I believe that Seattle traffic is faster, nastier, and more reckless than it was five years ago, that drivers here are less considerate of others on the road than they used to be, and that those tandem emblems of wealth-coddled “rugged individualism,” the driver’s cell phone and the SUV, exemplify a spirit of self-interest that sets the pace of the American road.

Given more than its share of monied thugs, a geography that funnels traffic over bridges (and thwarts the installing of tracks), gas prices and highway taxes that subsidize car drivers, and a recent growth surge that clogs arterial streets that once were fairly clear, Seattle is the model of a city that desperately needs but rarely heeds the call for better public transportation. As much as we need better transit systems (or just more busses), we need even more a reason not to drive.

Compared to Seattle-area traffic, traffic in and around Guadalajara, on secondary roads between cities in the central highlands, and in the farm country of Michoacan is more mannered yet more unrestricted—that is, somewhat more polite and vehemently more stylized in its execution of certain wild maneuvers. Two-lane roads become four-lane superhighways, as passing vehicles create a middle lane or lanes around the center line, gently forcing other vehicles to drive on the shoulder. Bicycles be damned.

In the cities the pace is hectic, but drivers usually obey the laws and don’t attack the pedestrians, who may jaywalk at their own risk. Although the traffic seems a bit more relaxed in Mexico than it is in the U.S., stories of kids behind the wheel, drunks on highway killing sprees, and carjackers on patrol in cities loom like threats to urge people to take the bus.

Car ownership in Mexico, where the average annual income is less than the cost of a car, means a lot more than it does in the U.S., but the extra boost in respect or status a Mexican driver might assume doesn’t come loaded with a corresponding scorn for others on the road. This may be the most difficult rule of the road for an American to accept: That people aren’t automatically inferior because they don’t drive, that people who need to or choose to take public transportation deserve a decent ride.

Not that this custom is hard to take down there, but that such civility makes it a shame to come home.

NEXT: A beauty makeover gone hilariously wrong.

ELSEWHERE:

• Those ever boomer-centric squares at NPR include only two post-1980 works in their “100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.” One of those, though, is our all-time fave….