Orphan Road

Michael O'Hare has an interesting article about us and the cars, and one of his tags is "drug policy". The difference between how we treat the drug "addict" and the automobile is indeed instructive.

The "drug user" (and we are all assumed to be drug users until we prove otherwise) must prove their innocence. Thirty years of error-free performance on the job can be cancelled by a hair-analysis that proves you were in a room where someone was smoking marijuana sometime in the past 30 days.

However, if you proposed putting traffic-cams on a road where children were routinely killed by speeders, the public would revolt. Laws are for the other guy. This is the strength of the automobile addiction.

And don't think traffic jams will break this habit. In Psych 105 at the U of W, they spent a week or two on reinforcers, leading up to the overwhelming conclusion- the strongest reinforcer of behavior is a reward of a variable size provided on an irregular schedule. If you don't like high-toned schoolin', check out your local casino.

Believe it, there will be a meltdown of the public psyche when some event, probably not too far off, reveals the eminent demise of the car. When that happens, will you be part of the solution......or part of the problem?