For the longest time, the responses that I hear to an accident on U.S. 2 are, “This road is plain unsafe!” “We have to fix this road before more people die!” “If there was a barrier, they would have lived!”
Really? Has it only occurred to me that safer roads enable stupid people to drive much faster? Has it only occurred to me that state-installed protections only seem to make the state liable when someone dies anyway?
It’s unbelievable that the citizens of this great state are so narrow in their thinking as to assume that invested money in the road will make people less stupid.
I feel the pain when there is death on this road. I lost a friend to a senseless accident. But we have to look for the real reason. People do not drive within the limits of the road! They speed, eat lunch, talk on cell phones, tend to their kids in the back seat, the list sadly goes on. How are safety improvements going to stop that?
It’s time to look at the real problem here. I understand that to blame the road makes the fix easier. When the problem is the people, nobody ever seems to know what to do. But if we want to fix this, we have to look at the people.
Let’s double fines. Let’s have more speed traps. Let’s put some cameras out there and send some of those double fines out. Let’s make these careless actions “reckless driving.” Let’s say that, from now on, infractions on these roads that are listed as dangerous will leave you suspended from driving on them. Let’s remove stupid people from the road!
No? These ideas wouldn’t be fair?
See! I told you. You don’t really want to fix this.
Yes, let’s do things to the road that will make it better. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the death toll will dramatically change. Because, you see, stupid people will still be there.
William Monger
Snohomish
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