Traffic fads and the aging driver-

This is an annotated version of the essay that appeared in The Coast News, a weekly paper in North Coast San Diego County.  My additional comments are in italics. 

We all are getting older, and so is our brain, which among other tasks, mediates response time and the myriad inputs involved in driving a car. Certainly those with real disabling neurological diseases should not drive, but the vast majority of the Medicare set do not have a medical disorder at all, in spite of the forces that would like to transform the definition of such normal aging to the diagnosis of "Mild Cognitive Impairment."

This is a major social-political issue,

Unfortunately, while it should be, the ongoing medicalization of aging is barely being discussed as such.   The ambiguity in both public perception and research of memory decline- changes in terminology and understanding of this most complex organ of cognition, has allowed a social shift to occur without much push back.  This article describes how this was embedded in The Affordable Healthcare Act without any discussion at all --and is still mostly unknown.  


but this article is more narrow, about how an aging population compounds the damage of the current trends in traffic design that could increase danger for us all. I've focused on two issues relating to this, The first is the ubiquitous four way stop signs, and the second is the trend to roundabouts and various traffic calming devices that are more challenging to drivers, especially older ones.

A car is the most deadly instrument that is controlled by all of us, from the teenager with a brain that has not matured enough to control his/her emotions to the older person who may not have the reflexes to respond to the challenges of driving.  Finding the right balance to facilitate this necessity of our daily life while protecting pedestrians and other drivers from tragic accidents is an ongoing problem.  Intuition isn't always accurate.  Conclusive research (see links below) shows increased unwarranted stop signs actually increase accidents, as the drivers speed up to make up lost time among other causes. 

This is no trivial issue as "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that distraction and inattention contribute to 20 to 30 percent of reported crashes." With fatalities approaching fifty thousand a year, we dare not allow decisions to be made out of habit or lack of the most serious study. Distraction is not only technology induced, but is caused by political decisions that causes a driver to check for a police car before driving quite safely at a slow speed through an unwarranted four way stop sign.

I recently sent a letter to the members of the Encinitas City Council opposing the removal of a specific traffic light that is slated to be replaced by a roundabout for these very reasons. Last week the New York Times had this article that described exactly what I warned the council of:

"The simple act of turning left ...... is confounded by a traffic circle, where an attempt to head east casts the driver into a ballet of choosing the proper lane, looking for the exit and maintaining a high alert in the crush of beach-seeking vehicles."

Local municipal authorities and traffic engineering departments seem to have adopted a bit too uncritically the worldwide trend to transform cities that grew with the automobile into idealized villages. Roundabouts are in and traffic lights are out. Those roundabouts that are popular usually replace four way stop signs, which are primitive as traffic control but highly effective for politically powerful communities to keep drivers from less august regions from using "their" thoroughfares. The cost in lost time and increased pollution of these signs that defy traffic engineering standards is ignored, or they would be replaced by more effective devices that fit actual traffic patterns.

There are standards published by the Federal Highway Administration that overlay State Laws that can only modify local ordinances.  An example of local flexibility is the rule for a complete stop before turning right on a red light.  This is similar to the rule for four way stop signs on the lower volume street.  In a personal conversation with the traffic director of Riverside California they acknowledge that a full stop is counterproductive, so their camera system excludes any car that slows to 15 mph from getting a summons.  This type of rational system could be implemented locally which would improve respect for the laws when they correspond to actual rational prevention of accidents. 

We now have little tolerance for those who text while driving, but we have yet to even acknowledge that increased complexity of a given traffic device has the same debilitating effect as answering a cell phone or other distractions. This additional mental effort, most challenging to the increasing numbers of older drivers, may not cause a crash at the site, but increase the stress level of the driver who has an accident down the road, thus defying statistical validation of this effect.

Perhaps some day we will not have to depend on that vulnerable organ the human brain to control the complex and challenging task of driving a car, but until that time arrives driver capacity should be a major part of our approach to traffic safety.
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References:

On Multi way stop signs:

Placing four-way stop signs on roads of very

unequal design, speed and traffic volume will tend

to promote stop-sign violations by drivers, especially

on main roads. Driver expectancies are violated in

situations like this and when this occurs, improper

actionsresult, which can increase safety risk at inter-

sections.

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From Transportation Research Board

 

The mini-roundabout design has been used for decades in Europe, but the capacity models developed for them may not be applicable to U.S. settings and drivers. This article provides design recommendations and an approach to estimate traffic capacity of mini-roundabouts from sites in the United States.

What would a real discussion of Same Sex Marriage have looked like?

We never had one.

This was originally written before the Supreme Court Decision that by ruling that the federal Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional  has been extrapolated into making many state prohibitions on this illegal.   The latest was in Utah, December 2013, by a district judge in the same month that another such Judge invalidated the law against what he called Religious Cohabitation, reported by the N.Y. Times as weakening the law against Polygamy.  Those who branded anyone who opposed same sex marriage, as prejudiced and bigoted, by de-legitimizing  any analysis other than individual rights have vitiated arguments against, at the very least, laws against incest.  The Utah decision which is an outgrowth of the same change in values that have resulted in same sex marriage will also impede an effective crackdown on sexual trafficking.  Polygamy, actual plural marriage with licenses and tax benefits creates such complexity of revising the property rights created for two people, that may forestall its legalization.  

I exchanged emails years ago with Atlantic Monthly editor Jon Rauch, who while an avid supporter of gay rights including, or especially, marriage* also defends what others call "hate speech" and defends the value of diverse, even if hurtful, free expression.  While this may be his goal, even writing a book expressing this values, I don't know if he is aware of the tsunami of cultural values that have overwhelmed his sincere sentiments.  The antipathy towards the least hint of "homophobic" views is so universal among the liberal elite, and those who respect such positions, that those in secular universities would be committing career, and probably social suicide to express sentiments such as I am here.  *In 2009 Rauch wrote this N.Y. Times OpEd in favor of foregoing the fight for "marriage equality" and supporting a law that would have given civil unions all federal benefits.

Incest (only among consenting adults considered in this discussion) and homosexuality were treated similarly before the later became redefined, semantically and legally.  Both activities were "sinful" and illegal.  The only argument against solemnizing both such relationships in marriage must be by explicating exactly why preventing these acts by two people, who- as a given- are in love, will cause harm to others.  If my hypothetical sibling couple who were separated when young met in college should they not be able to fully consummate their union both in body and in law.  If you are tempted to say this would be the exception, how about a grayer area.  Lets say a father whose wife and infant left him, and later when the daughter was of age, they met and formed a relationship. Examples are endless, including if Woody Allen's now stable marriage had been to someone whose adoption by his ex-wife had been joined by him.  Or should we have case by case decision?, and if so by whom based on what?

This is why we have bright line laws, that say for instance no 15 year old can marry, no matter how intelligent or emotionally mature.  We make such laws with full knowledge that there will be injustice, pain, maybe even suffering, among some but there is a social, cultural purpose, one that had been subsumed under the world "morality."  Sadly that word was conflated with sexual excess for generations, so public masturbation was something for the police morals squad, while we lost the word to describe non-sex related activity that has consequences not directly associated with the act.    


ll throw some thoughts out on what such a discussion on same-sex marriage could have been-with links appended to more extensive treatment.  First, there is a reason that there is no rational based discussion, as shown in this quote from a recent N.Y. Times article, Fighting Same-Sex Marriage With Zeal and Strategy.  

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which fights intolerance, says the National Organization for Marriage pushes the line of being labeled a hate group because it “continues to spread lies about gays” and uses its Web site to link to debunked research. The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, devotes a portion of its Web site, headlined “NOM Exposed,” to tracking Mr. Brown and his group.

This is the link to National Organization for Marriage  web site that allows those interested to explore whether this is close to being a hate group, as referenced above. They carefully attempt to separate their goal of opposing same sex marriage with expression of any antipathy towards gays.  This group, based on the content of current web site, represents advocacy of a political position, assiduously avoiding fomenting contempt of those on the opposite side.

They do, however, cater to a fundamentalist Christian audience which has the effect of closing down the discussion that I would have preferred that is based on the harsh realities of sexual taboos and the function that they serve.  While the liberal press, specifically the New York Times has refused to publish such rational based arguments, the opposition has not helped by rallying their side with biblical arguments.

The respected N.Y. Times, that once referred to President Clinton and the the then highest Military Officer Colin Powell as bigots for supporting Don't Ask Don't Tell, have now equated the denial of the word, "Marriage"-- which is the sole acknowledged effect of the challenge in the Supreme Court of California's Proposition 8 under DOMA, with all of the excesses of anti-black racism, including segregated schools and tacit approval of lynching.  So there are very few attempts at what this essay is trying to achieve, as those who support same sex marriage have adopted an "if you're not with us you are against us" attitude, with the  unleashing of ridicule, anger and even fury at those who are not on board.

While the NOM web site is certainly not hate speech, however, it is simplistic, with a section on sound bites to use to advance their cause.  This is used on the other side extensively, as in the latest term, "marriage equality" and the sound bite, "No one should be denied the right to marry the one they love."   Marriage is only recently about love, as it is a part of the complex regulation, by taboo, custom and finally laws relating to sexuality that are ancient and ubiquitous; and by definition a social purpose is thus assumed.   Examining this is the traditional "value free" function of disciplines such as social anthropology, sociology or history.  Yet, on this issue, as many others that have become politicized, they have abrogated their function and prerogatives of the scholarly enterprise.

The marriage ceremony of the parents of many readers here included the wife vowing to love, honor and "obey." Marriage, beyond the ideal of love, also contains not a little bit of subservience, traditionally of the female to the male.  There is an elaborate cultural, if now ethereal and declining, infrastructure of this asymmetry epitomized in mass entertainment of a few decades ago that allowed a headstrong wife to get a good spanking from a Clark Gable.  It is also evident in the measurable differences in how men talk to women or other men.

We err by conflating male and female same sex relationships, ignoring the vast ethnological based differences between such dyadic interactions by gender. A man coming on to another man has traditionally had an element of domination, often invidious, and still does in some subcultures. It is the less masculine males, those with less self assurance, who may pay a steep price of this dissolving the sexual complementarity of marriage. Homosexuality went from being a cause of suicidal shame among men to an insignia of courageous authenticity without the process of understanding what caused the former values to be so intrenched.  In a brief moment, from sources of the gay elite such as the New York Times that didn't see the irony of their society pages still describing the parental occupations of two men who were featured as solemnizing their relationship. 

Another seemingly progressive movement,  allowing women in all areas of military service seems like a "no brainer" an advance in equality, but now we have documentation of the large number of such women who are sexually assaulted.  What is even less acknowledged until recently is that men are also raped, and the shame is such that they are just going public. Is the inherent assaultive aspect of a man being sexual aggressive to another man somehow denied by the same sex marriage movement?  This is a bigger issue than this essay can explore, but deserves extensive evaluation--rather than what we have gotten--- which is none.

I will not attempt to say that what has only been referenced in this short article means that same sex marriage should not be legalized, but I do say that an enlightened discussion of the potential and in some cases probable adverse consequences should have been welcomed.  Those who opposed this cultural change, were drowned out by those who made a primitive argument based on the word of God as reflected in the bible, thus tainting any opposition as absurd to those who did not ascribe to such values.

This has happened by the virtual boycott of articles such as this, that looks at marriage of part of the complex social network of norms and laws that deal with power and sex roles.  The New York Times is the driving force of this editorial control, best exemplified by an OpEd article written a decade ago.  The writer wanted the title and the content to be "Secular argument against same sex marriage."  She wrote an essay describing how the editors refused to print some of her statements, and she accepted this as she wanted what remained to appear. I read her essay describing this experience but have not been able to locate it, but this event is factual.

Those with the academic background to explore these cultural issues have been silent, as such self censorship exists in other social issues that  would be damaging to their career and well being. This limitation of the academic mandate of unfettered exploration of all issues goes under the trivializing term, "political correctness," which is a denial of the seriousness of this distorting semantic vandalism.  This academic silence on this subject has given credence to the public view that "only benighted religious bigots could oppose this advance in equality."

That never was the case; and it makes this change in public sentiment more understood as the brilliant selling of an idea rather than an advance in enlightened exploration of a complex cultural and emotional issue.
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Same Sex Marriage- An Atheist's Analysis

How a comedy riff gets to the heart of this seismic issue 

The Political Cost on Judicial Imposition of Gay Marriage-dailykos essay 2006

Link to N.Y. Times article and my comment, with some overlap to this essay.