Unsafe At Any Speed
Posted by Jacob Harris Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:22:47 GMT
Last night, I almost saw my dog killed in front of my very eyes.
We were crossing with the light on 7th Avenue in Brooklyn, having just stopped by Cafe Steinhof to say hi to some of the people outside. When an SUV accelerated into the left turn, I saw a front bumper miss me by an inch and pass over my dog’s head. I then had to pull her out of the front wheel well before he crushed her and bring her back to the curb. The driver was oblivious to my screaming and kept on down the road. Nobody got the plates, and I was on my way running down a few blocks to the pet hospital with Bella in my arms (when you’re on adrenalin, a 55-pound dog seems much lighter).
We should probably rename her “Lucky.” After $500 of tests and screening, she may have emerged without much in the way of major injury (I’m hoping a tear in her Anterior Crucial Ligament isn’t in the cards though), but she hasn’t been too happy here at home, even with the pain killers. So, I guess I should be feeling fortunate…
But I just feel angry instead. This was not an accident that had to happen, and I think the fact it was a massive SUV was the cause of the problem. This is not to say that there are no bad drivers for smaller cars, but it’s a lot harder to run someone over and not notice in a MINI. The driver did not race away in a panic, we were just a bump in the road, a minor skip for the CD system, nothing to notice. And that was the truly scary part to me. How can car makers talk about the “safety” of your vehicle, when they’re really engineering a decrease in safety for everyone else? And what does this do to our cities, our public places, when we create these speed lanes for the oblivious and disconnected to barrel through without any caution? There is no single point to blame here, but I feel like we’re engineering a society disconnected from the effects of its actions, insulated from the outside world, and craving more of the same. And that just fills me with sadness this morning.
