Musings about moral relativism as it applies to driving in my neighborhood.

To paraphrase George Carlin, it’s pretty easy to consider anyone who’d driving much faster than you as crazy, and anyone who’s driving slower than you to be a jackass. I’ve noticed some more granular versions of the rules here in Eldorado, and it’s deepend the awareness I already have that I’m a hypocrite. (Yay!)

In the likely event that you don’t know, Eldorado is a small community about 10 miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. There’s almost nothing in between, literally. Some people love it and rarely leave it, some people loathe it and won’t make the 10 mile drive if their lives depend on it; it’s one of those “community association” communities, there are rules for pretty much anything you do to the outside of your house, which is a pain in the ass; in reality, the idea of it is a bigger pain in the ass than living with it, though. Whatever.

Having the luxury (or burdon?) of living in a community with maybe 7,000 people instead of many millions gives me a different perspective on all sorts of behaviors. Not better, just different. No big, diverse sample set to muddy my results, either. I’ve had guests comment on how much better people drive out here; it’s not generally true, people are the same wherever you go. It’s just that the whole rush hour in Santa Fe has 30,000 people driving at once, and that’s probably 30 seconds of traffic in the Holland Tunnel. If, for example, 5% of the drivers are absolutely drunk and insane (I’m guessing low because I’m an optimist), 5% of Santa Fe’s drivers is a much smaller number than 5% of the State of New Jersey. Just sayin’.

People may drive a little differently in New Mexico, and there may even be tendencies specific to Eldorado where I’ve become most familiar. In my area, roads are all 35 or 45 mph speed limits with appropriate slow zones by schools and such. No traffic lights, just some stop signs, and pretty sporadic enforcement; at worst, a cop warns people near the school to slow down occasionally after complaints rack up long enough, then nothing for months. 2 lane main roads and side streets. So there’s not much external pressure to “do the right thing,” and it’s interesting to see how people use the freedom when left to their own devices.

Last year I found my mind stitching together little personality models based on how people drive, and they work pretty well. A couple examples for Eldorado:

The Speeding vs. Obeying Stop Signs Rule.
A person who speeds – maybe driving 55 in a 35 mph zone – is very likely to stop at stop signs. A person who sticks diligently to the 35 mph speed limit almost never stops at all stop signs. And I don’t mean a coasting stop (a/k/a “A California Stop” as an Oregonian might call it), I mean not the tiniest hint of even knowing there’s a stop sign there. The cautious-seeming old person who’s braking every 3 seconds to keep their speed from creeping to 36 will also be the one squeal their Subaru Forester around a corner at a speed that even the 18-year-old-jackass version of me wouldn’t have attempted, while the coyote-smashing road burners speeding through the curves suddenly become responsible when they see the red octagon. For speeders, maybe it’s just an excuse to peel out and accelerate again. Not that I ever think that way. The most interesting thing is how little crossover happens between the mindsets; a speed-obeyer never, ever stops, and a speeder/stop-sign-obeyer almost never ignores the signs. Funny.

The Amount Someone Speeds vs. The Amount They Tailgate Rule. (Doesn’t apply on the highway or any 4 lane road, just 2 land roads.)
Around here, the faster a person speeds, the less likely they are to tailgate. Someone going 45 mph in a 35 mph zone is very likely to ride your ass if you’re sticking to the speed limit; it’s a moral imperative or something – the sign might say 35, but if the community rule is actually 45 then you’re personally slapping “real” community members in the face with your self-righteous law obeying. Someone going 60 in a 35 zone will ease off you almost 100% of the time if they discover you while they’re zipping around some blind curve; they were just having some fun or closing the gap, and now that they’ve spotted other people on the road, they’ll just go whatever speed traffic goes. (When the person in front turns off, they’ll speed off again.) The only times I’ve seen people cross the double line and pass, Bostonian road-rage style, it’s been by people who only want to drive 10 miles per hour faster. The guy in the Lotus Esprit never tailgates, just the 18 year old with the 6 year old Hyundai Tiburon. The guy with the old F150 never does it, but the Realtor(TM) in the Lexus SUV does it pretty predictably. (She almost mashed me an my daughter once when we were out for a walk, but that had more to do with her cell phone than the size, shape or brand of her car. And car brand and model is a whole ‘nother story, I’ve “compiled data” on that model for years so don’t get me started.)

The Pulling Out In Front Of People vs. Driving Slowly Rule.
People who force you to hit your brakes when they pull into traffic at the last minute from a side street are almost 100% likely to drive slower than you want to. People who wait until you’ve passed are likely to want to go faster than you, from behind you, once they’re in traffic. Hardly anyone a) waits until you’ve passed and then drives slowly behind you, or b) cuts you off and then zooms off into the horizon. Just never happens here.

For every “rule” I identify, it takes me a long time to come up with the opposite equivalent. That’s because I identify the problems by judging the actions of others (because they’re clearly wrong). So the the mostly-equal-and-probably-just-as-bad opposite doesn’t leap out at me since, for me, it’s the better choice. For example, I’m more of a speeder/stopper than a not-speeder/not-stopper; I have no ethical problem driving a little over the speed limit when I’m the only car on the road, but I have a physical reaction when someone runs a red light or doesn’t stop at a stop sign. It goes against everything that I was raised to believe is right and good in the world. To take a step back, I’d guess that society considers certain kinds of speeding more or less on the same moral plane as running a stop sign. A nominal fine, a point or two on the license. Probably some incremental difference, but one offense will not generate federal prison time compared to the other.

(Why it is that you never see someone in perfect balance is also curious; why doesn’t anyone, ever, drive the speed limit AND stop at stop signs, for example? I know it’s a statistical possibility, and since everyone overestimates both their moral superiority and driving skill, it’s safe and easy for me assume that I’m as close to that perfect balance as anyone out there. But still…)

So as much fun as it is to entertain and amaze with my highly accurate models of driving behavior, I’m finding myself more interested in “paying attention to what I’m doing” lately. Sounds pretty simple, but out here where I can set my cruise control for 75, legally, the drive on relatively straight, relatively empty, relatively well-maintained roads encourages lapses in focus. 10 minutes disappear, and while I’m sure brake lights would have snapped me out of my reverie, it’s a little scary. My complaining about the other people on the road takes my attention from my own driving efforts, and far from helping anything, makes me a subtle co-conspirator in road craziness. I guess another way to say it is that the best thing I can do to make the roads safer is to focus on what I’m doing and not worry about all the terrible transgressions of others.

It’s all probably pretty obvious to some people with a different personality than mine, but I’m a judgemental overthinker, so this is another revelation to me. The weird thing is, when I make a point to, say, stop at a stop sign out here, everyone else at the 4-way stop actually does, too. It’s my secret mission to get people to stop at stop signs where I live by stopping at them myself. No dirty looks at people, no yelling, no positive affirmations, just me doing what I think is right and seeing how it affects the world around me. It makes me laugh out loud when it works, and it almost always works; it seems miraculous. I’m “being the change I envision in the world,” and seeing instant results. Unexpectedly. It’s entirely possible that a lot of the spiritual aphorisms that are tossed so casually around ACTUALLY WORK.

My experiences growing up left me pretty numb to traditional “turn the other cheek” and “love thy neighbor” platitudes, but not because of where they come from or they’re because they’re incorrect or anything. Now suddenly, when I hear one of these phrases tossed around or see it smugly displayed on the bumper sticker of a Prius, I don’t react with instant disdain – I find myself asking, “Is that true?” or “Could that work?”

These processes are all connected in that ball of garden twine that is my brain, and rather than any final (big?) insight, it’s interesting to watch the changes at least. There always have been and always were going to be changes, but I feel like I’m more acutely aware of them than before, and I’m either getting a lot better at deceiving myself, or a lot worse. I even find myself catching myself being judgemental and halting it. Sometimes.

Back to work; it’s Monday, after all.

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