Highway 195: An update and thoughts about government
I drive south on Highway 195 most every day. As I pass the its intersection at the Cheney-Spokane Road I notice that more and more tributes and remembrances are being placed at the intersection where a 16 year old girl was killed in an auto accident several months ago. Every time I pass by I think how sad and how senseless her death was. It probably would not have happened had government been more wise about controlling traffic at the intersection. It probably would not have happened had government been more cautious. It probably would not have happened if one or two people in government stood up and said something, said what needed to be done to better to protect people driving vehicles at the intersection.
The intersection controls, the way the intersection was managed, was a product of the thinking of people who act as members of groups within government. Had one or more members of the groups expressed concern and had stood up for the concern expressed, the young lady would probably be alive today.
Yesterday, for the very first time in the years I have travelled through the intersection I saw a police officer checking the speed of the northbound traffic with a radar gun. That’s something I thought. But why is the speed limit 55 mph at the intersection? Why does government require that speed when it would be more reasonable for all concerned to reduce it to protect all the people who use the intersection? Why?
What motivates people who are making the decisions? I suspect it is the notion of the group, the “we”, the collective mind, over the notion of the individual mind, over the notion of elemental good sense. It is as if the we has a right to be unreasonable. It is the notion that the we has a right to act such that some affected by the decision are to unnecessarily suffer. It is as if there is a sort of ongoing government condemnation, a taking, which operates within the force of the government which is controlled by a certain government party mindset. And then I ask, who is this government party? Is there something the people who are in the groups who control the government have in common with one another? I suspect one common element is that these people do not speak for themselves very often and pretty much yield to the mindset of the group when they do – they are not courageous.