Cars are the problem? Nope!

Very recently in the course of digitally strolling through various internet websites, I ran across (unfortunately choice of words, really, in association with cars!) an article by a bicyclist on cranial protection. The title of the article was, I think, ‘The Cult of Head Protection’ and it dealt with helmets for bicyclists and the laws that pertain to the matter in various states and municipalities.

In so many words, the thesis of the article was that the protective value of helmets has been FAR overblown and that the primary threat to bicyclist safety is not proper use/misuse of a protective helmet but the threat posed to two-wheeled vehicle drivers by automobiles (more specifically by their drivers).

This topic was for me a very salient one to consider carefully, since not only am I a life-long bicyclist and motorcyclist, I am also a (now retired) specialist in human life support and human factors (with a focus on cranial protection). Despite being retired, I remain an active user of two-wheeled vehicles and transportation safety advocate but I am well aware in pursuing this Holy Cause that I am essentially farting into a howling, cosmic Beaufort Force 8 storm.

Guns kill, not people (and other fallacious delusions)

All of us will likely quite easily recall the Alec Baldwin Hollywood on-set film (RUST) shooting incident, wherein Baldwin accidentally shot and killed one member of the production and wounded another. Baldwin (along with the film’s armorer, Hannah Guiterrez Reed) has recently been convicted of two counts of involuntary manslaughter (negligent homicide) after a lengthy legal process subsequent to the incident.

Baldwin consistently claims that he did not pull the trigger, implying, ipso facto, that the gun discharged of its own volition. Such a thing is virtually impossible, especially in that a 6-shot ‘Western Peacemaker’ style revolver must first be cocked before it will fire. Unlike so many of today’s semi-automatic pistols, which can accidentally fire for several reasons (including having a round already in the action, even though the magazine is empty), old style revolvers and especially the single-action type are virtually impossible to fire without some very deliberate activation on the part of the user.

Being as this may, Baldwin claims that ‘…the gun killed the victim’…not him. Anyone who follows all the acrimonious kerfuffle today that exists between the gun-control advocates and those who oppose them should immediately be aware of the fact that this is exactly the same argument advanced by the progressive liberals (the same ones who would ‘defund’ all law enforcement agencies): i.e. that ‘Guns kill people’. In fact guns don’t kill people unless a human shooter deliberately aims the weapon at a person and shoots them (either intentionally or unintentionally, since this fine point matters not at all to someone who is now dead from a fatal gunshot wound).

Pro-gun advocates consistently hammer home this argument although the inarguable logic and bullet-proof (another unfortunate choice of words, but…) reasoning supporting this contention fails to penetrate the ’la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you!’ defensive effusiveness of those who think guns are intrinsically evil, malignant and essentially living tools in and of themselves, with no human interaction required. Unfortunately, snowflakes, guns are indeed merely dumb, lifeless tools, just like nuclear weapons, that may or may not be used appropriately by the clever little parasites (Homo sapiens) that invented them. No more and no less!

Thus, Baldwin’s statement is a trope that reflexively echoes in several adjacent corridors of subjectural (I’m coining a word, here, simply because it sounds so COOL in the saying) reflection, one of them being the bicycle helmet contention. Specifically, the argument as to whether the use or non-use of a protective helmet is the greatest subjective threat to a two-wheeled vehicle rider’s immediately safety.

In fact, as the writer of the cranial protection article

referred to so correctly notes, the greatest single threat to bicyclists (and motorcyclists) is not use/non-use of helmets but the automobile (which like a gun, is not intrinsically dangerous unless used inappropriately by a human operator).

I have written a great many articles about the dangers posed by automobiles to those riding two-wheeled vehicles, unprotected by several thousand pounds of steel and polymeric protective cladding as are characteristic of almost all 4-wheeled motor vehicles. Of course, given the limited audience my observations’ reach, saying so is about as effective as standing on a mountain top and farting into the teeth of an atmospheric storm-of-the-century (one of my seemingly favorite predilections, it would appear).

This basic fact, that a bicyclist weighing an average of 70 kg on a relatively flimsy bicycle weighing a shade less than that, is NOT equal to a motorist driving a 2700+ kg car/truck. And yet over the past 100+ years America has steadfastly refused to separate bicycles and automobiles on roads and paved byways. In the Confused State of Californica (sic), the powers-that-be have adopted a cute motto that urges cars and bicyclists to ‘Share the Road!’ This creedo implies that it is safe for both these highly disparate types of vehicles to operate within a mere 3 feet of each other (when there is even a ‘bicycle lane’ provided, which is more often than not not the case in too many cities and rural areas). Under existing Californica Civil Codes, bicycle riders are legally entitled to take up a whole lane to themselves if there is no specific bicycle lane provided…a lot of good this does for someone who is killed by an overly-assertive, possibly even overtly belligerent Hummer (I cite this merely due to the fact that a street-legal Hummer is a vehicular obscenity of the highest order) driver who thinks that it’s an insult to have a puny little bicycle retard his narcissistic forward progress on the road. (By-stander witness: “Gee officer! He was legally ENTITLED to use the whole lane!”).

Thus, the salient point to emerge here is that this ‘Share the Road’ fantasy is indeed just that: a total human resources fantasy! It never has been, nor shall it ever be, safe for bicycles and automobiles to operate side-by-side on the same streets. EV-ER!

In the case of motorcycles,

the risks are even greater, if you can manage to grasp that stunningly obvious reality, since motorcyclists are not only legally expected to take up a whole lane (again, under the State of Californica’s VC) and bound by the same rules that govern car operation, their operation is governed by exactly the same set of regulations as monster-sized automobiles (and commercial trucks, which often tip the scale at thousands of kilograms) on roads and highways. However, ANY collision between a motorcycle and a 4-wheeled vehicle is almost guaranteed to result in a fatal outcome for the cyclist (and conversely, hardly a scratch sustained by the car-driver)! I’m not a gambler by nature but I wouldn’t hesitate to bet against any two-wheeler at a Vegas casino, if such forms of gaming existed).

Most regrettably, there are no immediate answers forthcoming in regards to the motorcycle versus automobile truck road-operation contention, but in the case of bicyclists, it has been screamingly obvious for decades that bicyclists MUST have physically separate lanes, entirely to themselves that are screened off from direct contact with automotive vehicular traffic! Europe has had such a system in use for a great many years, recognizing the fragility of the human anatomy when impacted by 27K of reinforced steel cladding and structural accessorising.

Such an enlightened attitude will, naturally, never gain much of a following here in the Disunited States of America for the simple reason that in the DSA we have invested the ownership and operation of motorized 4-wheeled vehicles with a near cult-like status, elevated almost to that of a national religion. This is particularly the case in the home of the ‘original car-culture’, my own Californica.

But again, returning to the analogue

being discussed here, cars by themselves are NOT the major problem. It is, as with the gun counterpart argument, a matter of human irresponsibility and malfeasant conduct with what may easily be categorised as ‘dangerous weapons’ (or if you insist on more precise terms, tools that are intrinsically and inherently dangerous when misused or misoperated or misdeployed). Both guns, sharp pencils and cars are included in that catchall category.

The right to drive a vehicle is not a constitutional right, of course. It is theoretically a privilege regulated to a certain degree by civil codes that require certain prerequisite compliances (namely being legally of specified age and taking a brief examination to demonstrate familiarity with the legal constraints conferred upon motor vehicle operators); l am told the Californica Department of Motor Vehicles stopped requiring an oath by license applicants that included the phrase “…Scout’s Honor”, but…. That is, however, where the process stops as if it hit a dead-end as hard as Nancy Pelosi’s husband’s head (and he’s not even IRISH!).

Decades ago (in the 1950s, for instance),

all candidates for driving licenses were given mandatory driver training in public schools. This practice seems to have spontaneously vanished as if blown away in the wind back in the 70s and today, there are no driving tests that demonstrate correct application of knowledge for first time applicants; all that is required is taking a short, written true-and-false examination that even a decorticated mule could pass. Since almost any garden variety fool can take and pass such a jokey written test, we end up with scores of new drivers who are further increasingly becoming used to sophisticated automation in newer vehicles that can literally do the driving for them. The proliferation of ‘automatic safety systems' in our expensive new vehicles merely further assures that drivers are encouraged to ignore basic driving skills and handling competency. Thus we end up with nation full of unskilled, distracted drivers who haven’t a clue what ‘safe driving’ translates to on the road.

Regrettably, driving a vehicle properly and with both due regard for safe operation and the safety of others requires far more than knowledge of how to start a car, put it into ‘DRIVE’ and start off! It further presupposes a certain level of maturity and emotional stability…qualities that today far too many individuals seem to be in short supply of.

Add into this potentially catastrophic mix of elements modern distractions such as powerful music/entertainment systems and electronic communications devices (cellphone technology), as well as factor in a high degree of irresponsibility and juvenile childishness, and you have a potentially dangerous environment for anyone trying to survive within it on two wheels (whether powered or unpowered).

Further, and this is something that most people seldom broach or even discuss seriously, in the Disunited States of America there is and has always been an extremely disproportionate spirit of youthful recklessness and rebellion to contend with. Both chronological juvenile and adults who suffer from ‘arrested adolescence’ are affected to a dangerous extent by the cultural excesses of a Hollywood/entertainment business that exploit this same, natural adolescent ‘rebelliousness’ by producing films and video material that celebrate the youthful rebel image (AKA: the ‘Bad Boy’ image), thus perpetuating it.

‘Bad Boyz’...

One sees this last quality at work in people (usually young, poorly educated and/or maladjusted socially) who own and drive overpowered automobiles that reflect the ‘Bad Boy’ image. A great many of what I term ‘Hardly-Goodson’ motorcyclists fall into this last group, trying to affectively reflect the ‘dangerous’ attitudes portrayed originally in early Hollywood ‘biker’ movies (such as Brando’s immortal ‘The Wild One’). [From that film, question asked by a reporter, “What are you rebelling against?” Brando, in the film: “What yah got?”).]

Thus we see scores of wealthy people (or people in higher income brackets, such as lawyers, successful business owners, doctors, etc.)…or who are at least wealthy enough to be able to pay the exaggerated prices being asked for your typical Hardly-Goodson Motorcycle…driving their noisy, polluting Hardly hogs around in a thinly disguised attempt to be viewed by others as somehow dangerous and socially rebellious. Most often, these Hardly riders deliberately try to be as noisy and as irritating as possible, since (unconsciously perhaps) they have learned to ‘weaponised’ the annoying noise these machines create. As any psychologist will quickly affirm, inflicting annoying and irritating noise on others is a passive but highly effective means of inflicting extreme discomfort on others. The same mechanism is seen in youths who drive around with monster-preamp stereo systems in their cars that are so loud that anything within a block or less of them may actually vibrate somewhat painfully from the high volume of their ‘music’. It is indeed an effective way for immature individuals to capriciously say “F*ck-you!” to others by default, and make no mistake, it is a deliberate act of overt rebellion against ‘the system’ they are otherwise powerless to fight against (albeit on a colossally juvenile and crude level of expression).

Let me digress a bit here to clarify what my overt bias being expressed here in my commentary (an intense personal dislike of the ‘Hardly-Goodson’ brand) is. I speak as a life-long fan of the sort of extremely fine and superbly engineered Japanese engineering technology that one finds in many of the products sold by Japan (specifically, in this case, of Japanese motor vehicles, whether two-wheeled or 4-wheeled). By contrast, H-D engines are long-since technologically obsolesced engineering developments, originating decades ago and continued simply because they are irrevocably associated with the classic early 50s ‘bad boy’ posture that so many immature people still worship! As I’ve said many times before, German engineers will be quick to affirm the fact that excessive noise in any machine is a symptom of gross mechanical inefficiency, not a symbol of masculine power and brute force. The Japanese know this well enough, but Americans persist in clinging to the axiom that ‘loud noise is a weapon to use as surely as any device devised to inflict oppressive discomfort and/or harm to others’ and embrace this as wholly as they do the semi-myth of our precious national rights and ’freedoms’ (buried deep in convoluted bureaucratic interpretations of the term, of course).

Sadly, at this time in our national history,

America is inflicted by and infected with the disease of progressive liberal ‘wokeism’, (an integral component of which is CRT, or highly fanciful ‘Critical Race Theory’) a fanciful doctrine that both embraces and promotes the sort of distorted interpretation of ‘diversity’ that can ultimately only ruin a system such as ours and further nourish the seeds of existing social disharmony.

One of the many adverse effects of the above dogma is to openly encourage social anarchy, something that the ‘bad boy’ affect adopted by many ‘bikers’ has always found quite compatible (think here: ‘Sons of Anarchy’, an outlaw motorcycle gang whose very name itself actively associates itself with the image of disruptive social anarchy). The history of ‘anarchy’ as a social dynamic is, naturally enough, a very old one that has plagued orderly societies for eons but that gained a particularly huge following fairly recently, influenced by Marcuse-Marxist intellectuals of the 50s and 60s.

Unfortunately, the average public person is largely an unthinking, intellectually uncritical dummy with the thoughtfulness of a large clam, that doesn’t engage in focusing on and deciphering the nuances of the bigger picture (no matter what the subject might be). This same characteristic is responsible for the appalling fact that despite our highest politicians’ continued absolute incompetence and lack of even a vestige of true leadership qualities, they continue to be reelected by their constituents, owing to the above dynamic.

But enough of the causative social politics factors implicit in deficit public attitudes concerned with embracing personal responsibility and manifesting the exercise of sound critical thinking traits.

Let me cite one example here

of how all this may drastically impact riders of two-wheeled vehicles (again, either human-powered or motor-powered) in my residential neighborhood, an otherwise well-balanced and diverse middle class part of Sacramento, Californica, this state’s capital.

The city has its typical demographic divisions in that some parts of town are considered ‘good, safe and stable’ for families, whereas it has other areas that are equally diverse in terms of their racial make-up but statistically far less suitable for the ‘good, safe and stable’ classification (read: much higher levels of violent crime). One of these in particular may be loosely referred to as ‘The Barrio’, since it has always been predominantly Chicano (Hispanic) and given that the city’s two major interstate highways run parallel to each other (with the ‘Barrio’ in between them), a certain major east/west avenue connects the two major highways. [This is the crowd that will typically buy several large McDonald’s meals and then just toss the refuse out of the car window while exceeding a street’s posted speed limit by a good 20 mph, in case you’re wondering.]

This avenue has now become a convenient connecting link to the city’s major interstate that is I-5 and every day a high percentage of the traffic using it originates in the Barrio. Unfortunately, the Barrio is the home of a great many poorly educated, socially irresponsible individuals (not to mention recently arrived illegals from Mexico), and the evidence of their passage is marked by a profusion of trash tossed out of windows, huge amounts of roadway litter and…gangsta or gangbanger muscle-car cruisers with illegally modified engines and usually also with monster stereo systems.

The avenue cited above happens to have a speed limit of 35 mph and yet no one EVER observes the limit, as if to do so would be somehow unmanly or unmacho. Cars frequently hurtle down the street in excess of 60 mph, even past a large local elementary school with 25 mph speed limit signs prominently posted. Further, there is little if any local law enforcement to discourage or apprehend these reckless individuals as they regularly flaunt the existence of even a tiny modicum of responsible regard for school children and/or local residents. Walking on this avenue’s sidewalks is not at all unlike my ‘80s experiences working the Laguna Seca and Sears Point racetracks as a turn-marshal and a part of the race safety/medical crew! It’s so unnerving, walking on them, that anyone who isn’t wearing some sort of sound-attenuating device (earplugs, noise-cancelling headphones, etc.) may be physically shaken by the passage of these idiots in their cars travelling 50-60 mph and only separated by about 3 feet of space from a messy end on the tiny, 50s-built sidewalk!

And of course, the Hardly-Goodson crowd seem to take especially sadistic delight in needlessly revving and running up their engines when they pass a hapless dog-walker or other innocent pedestrian trying to get down the street. Forget about any calls to the local police department, since they’ve been hard-hit by the ‘defund’ impetus of progressive goody-goods and they haven’t enough personnel to enforce these laws, even if they were so motivated.

When enough people ignore a law, it becomes impossible to enforce; when a society becomes lawless, it becomes chaotic and anarchistic. I daresay that should murder ever become common enough as a method of settling simple arguments, even the prohibition of such shockingly felonious behavior would become legally unenforceable, as well. In our wonderful State of Californica, the idea that proposing and passing yet another ‘law’ in an effective way of dealing with any problem deemed sufficiently objectionable to require drastic preventive action. All these laws, when ignored by sufficient numbers, become ‘unenforceable laws’ and absolutely nothing ends up being done to resolve them. Ask any Californica Highway Patrolman about this and if he replies honestly and candidly, he’ll tell you that existing speed limit laws are largely a joke (I’ve had several friends who are CHP officers assure me that this is indeed true). Making a few stops and/or issuing tickets accomplishes absolutely nothing in the long-term!

So, what’s the end-result here? With the ‘open borders’ policy adopted by Democratic progressives in our state (and at a Federal level) adding millions of Chicanos/Hispanics to the border states’ populations, and with a disproportionate number of them illegally operating vehicles with neither licenses nor insurance these days (an unsurprising fact uncovered in a recent PEW poll), our roads are becoming increasingly dangerous for two-wheeled vehicle operators. Add to this potentially lethal mix of hazards waiting to happen are the great number of high-performance automobiles who use our local freeways and streets as personal private race-tracks for the sheer fun of it (thanks to movies like ‘Fast and Furious’). Add the further increased incidence of DUIs to the mix and you have a driving environment that is just damned unsafe for EVERYONE…but most especially so for bicyclists, pedestrians and motorcyclists, who are unprotected from all the road-worthy M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks out there!

At its fullest consideration,

the problems of safety alluded to herein are not easily solvable or readily resolvable, most unfortunately, since to a substantial extent they reflect far broader social conditions and a breakdown of social order exacerbated by the very determined promptings of the leftist liberal progressives (e.g. the “Diversity, Inclusion, Equity” et al, crowd), with their puerile enthusiasm for neo-Marcusian/Marxist doctrines.

The article that prompted all the above musings and ruminations, let me reiterate, began with an observation that use/non-use of protective helmets was not the most crucial subjective hazard facing riders of two-wheeled vehicles. The point emerging, that the true dire hazard is actually automobiles has also been more correctly qualified to actually be, although undeniable within context, the human operators who drive them.

My own drill-down into that proposal has hopefully shown that regardless of any enhanced emphasis on and concern for stricter personal protective gear standards for bicycle and motorcycle riders, any adverse encounter between a two-wheeler and a 4-wheeler is bound to result in serious injury (or death) for the former (and practically no injury to the car driver). In other words, no matter how obsessive one may be about wearing all the (expensive) proper safe attire, any hit from a careless driver in a car will likely result in fresh road-kill. Sober fact. Think about it.

We cannot adequately control the actions and/or recklessness of the majority of car drivers who are young, inexperienced or just possessed of a juvenile myopia and yet given the radically restricted function of law enforcement to enforce road safety (speed limits, et al), the odds of being favorable that a two-wheeler stands (whether wearing a helmet or not) anywhere around cars are about as likely as a black rap/hip-hop artist suddenly discovering the genius of classical ‘evil white music’ and composing a symphonic masterpiece.

Sad to say, things have gotten so bad

in large chunks of today’s America (vis-à-vis social politics and the day-to-day lack of wisdom and sagacity on the part of our national leaders) that it shall simply continue to spiral downwards and completely out of control. As our highways continue to fill up with impatient, self-centered, self-gratifying, narcissistic young people, illegal immigrants who are unlicensed and uninsured, and all the anarchistically inclined, arrested mentality, macho dimbulbs who compensate for their small pee-pees with overpowered, illegally altered muscle-cars, the hazards of taking to the road on either a bicycle or a motorcycle grow exponentially each month.

As regards bicycles, it is long overdue for America to adopt a modified European system of separating motor vehicles and human-powered vehicles. That is the ONLY safe resolution possible, given human carelessness and irresponsibility behind the wheel of a car. But alas, that also shall never come to be from all reasonable indications.

The same resolution cannot, however, even be considered for motorcyclists, sadly, since they are engine-powered vehicles and should properly be limited to the same highways and roads cars operate on. [The fact that in America young people (and those afflicted with the previously alluded-to ‘arrested juvenile mentality’) on powerful motorcycles also act irresponsibly around automobile traffic simply adds to the hazards they face. If I had a penny every time some young yahoo drove his motorcycle stupidly around me (whether in a car or on a bike), I’d be the proverbial millionaire by now.]

The core problem seems to be

that far too many younger Americans today lack the sort of maturity that prior generations took far great pains to inculcate and reinforce in their kids. First, blame the parents, naturally, since in so many cases they’ve simply given up and are so obsessively self-absorbed that they just let their kids turn into little savages who remain that way well into supposed ‘adulthood’. But we can also blame the leftist progressive liberals with their pants-wetting, enthusiastic embrace of racial diversity, ‘wokeism’ and Critical Race theory ideals, since it’s a simple and easily demonstrable fact that diversity without a strong sense of cultural homogeneity to alloy it is one of the most culturally corrosive, socially destructive forces a nation may endure. We can additionally heap plenty of blame on the Hollywood entertainment industry that exists parasitically by fanning the flames of youthful discontent and restlessness…oh yeah!

Given that members of my older generation are soon going to be dying off completely and that eventually, as someone drolly pointed out recently, one of today’s young Marxist-inspired radicals will very likely end up as President of the Disunited States, the prospects are less than awful for not just the safety of two-wheelers on the roads, but the continuity of this nation!

Sadly, the ‘sheeple’ (as one of my friends term them)

that populate America today have lost sight of the erstwhile ‘blessings’ of a homogenous social order in which people have much in common and little apart. Japan remains as the single most important example of such a state wherein everyone has dark hair, similar (Asian) features and a cultural history/mind-set that dates back a thousand or more years. China comes in second, despite its having over 250+ national ‘minorities to contend with, also features that homogenous national character in its history that extends back several thousands of years. In the latter instance, despite repeated conquests and absorption of diverse tribes, peoples and cultural infusions, China has emerged with its predominant Han Chinese identity largely intact. The irony implicit (if there is any) that exists is found in the fact that today it is the importation of destructive, anti-social Western (read: American) cultural excesses that is gradually tearing China apart, despite Xi Jinping’s best totalitarian efforts to quell that trend. I would venture here to say that the culture that manages to control, contain and ‘shape’ the nature of its inexperienced, immature and unworldly element (youth) will fare best in the long term.

Aspects of our Western culture,

including rampant exploitative commercialism, marketing and advertising co-appropriation of guileless youths and of course the social media sickness that exists thanks to communications technological advances are unquestionably out of control in our nation and shall ultimately finish destroying whatever of our national core principles and beliefs are left, after the rest of the world turns on us with a vengeance.

Personally, and speaking not as a nihilist but rather a Schopenhauer-grade extreme pessimist, perhaps the kindest thing that Mad-dog Putin could do would be to push his Big Red Button and bring this whole sordid mess called (sardonically, in my opinion) 'Human Civilisation' to a permanent, screeching halt, once and for all.

In a few further short years, all of this shall, of course, no longer matter to me but meanwhile, I intend to take my (statistically poor) chances and keep riding my bicycles and motorcycles on the hazardous streets and roads of America. Wearing a helmet, just in case…

Oh yes, and if I ever, in a weak moment of absolute frustration with the sheer stupidity of my fellow human beings, needlessly gun my motorcycle’s motor in your immediate proximity, remember what I am covertly and passively saying to you…!

Not to worry, however, since it’s a VERY quiet and efficient Japanese motor, well behaved and socially responsible…which is more than I can say for most Hardly-Goodson hog riders! Bleagh!

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POSTSCRIPT:

Approximately an hour after I finished writing the foregoing commentary on the ‘human factor’ in two-wheel vehicular safety, I decided to take my trusty old 1973 VW ‘Beetle’ out for its 6 mile, bi-monthly exercise. I use a route that takes me south towards a juncture with Highway I-5 (Interstate-5) and given that the bug is a shade of hi-viz sunset orange it’s quite visible to other traffic (‘see and be seen’…works in aviation and should also work on the roads, eh?). This road coincidentally takes me to the western-most end of that ‘Barrio’ part of the city I mentioned.

So, there I am, having just done a U-turn and preparing for the return 3.5 mile trek back to the home hanger, when a late-model Ford Mustang with black-out windows comes up from behind, blows by me at perhaps 80 mph and cuts sharply back in front of me, missing my old bug by mere inches! As an expert on juvenile ‘attitude pitching’, it didn’t take three active brain cells to interpret this highly dangerous maneuver as a typical, gratuitous youthful ‘F*ck-you’ gesture by a bored adolescent.

If I were in a court of law at this point, I’d be turning towards the judge and saying “The prosecution rests its case, your Honor.” It’s as perfect an example of what I was referring to in the above paragraphs as one could possibly find. To whomever was in that overpowered road-racer that just about hit me, this was a perfect opportunity to express the sort of immature, reckless and highly hazardous puerile impulse in reference that can easily kill people as surely as a gun…the sort that can take out a small, two-wheeled vehicle in a heartbeat, or an old underpowered VW Beetle equally.

As such it imparts a perfect exclamation point to my hypothesis that we can institute all the safety measures conceivable, yet still be subjected to that damned joker in the card deck: juvenile recklessness and irresponsibility behind the wheel of an automobile. All you need to do is add drugs or alcohol to that scenario and you have a 5 O’Clock News story, for sure...I’m still fuming!

Case closed and the defense rests. Court adjourned.