Speaking of Traffic, Sort Of

One of the fun things about having ZipCar as your vehicle is the opportunity to drive a wide variety of automobiles, some of which give you the chance to try out newfangled gadgetry like the rear view camera in the Honda CR-V I drove today.

In case you haven't seen it, this is a little panel in the dashboard which, when you put the car into Reverse, displays a view of what's behind you. In full color, no less, with lines superimposed to indicate exactly where you'll end up if you slam on the gas and back up right then.

It's cool, but also a little weird. I found myself alternately watching the panel, and looking over my shoulder, the way we did back when I learned to drive.

I suppose practically speaking there's no need to look over the shoulder anymore, since the camera can see a lot more than I can through the back window, but it just felt wrong, somehow, to be backing up without glancing behind me.

Even though, in fact, I might actually be worse off by looking, since I could back over a small object that wouldn't be visible in the back window, but would show up in the camera view. When technology presents an improved way of doing things that is opposite to the habitual way of doing things, it feels a little awkward at first.

In fact, it was a bit like a video game, maneuvering around while looking at a screen, and I'm all for video games, but again, it felt a little wrong to be playing one while driving.

I'd probably get used to it, if I drove more. In a vehicle that had that particular gadgetry.

On a mostly unrelated note, I kind of miss hood ornaments. The style of cars these days is to have the hood slope way down, so you can't actually see where the front of the car is. I can never tell how close I am to hitting the wall of the garage. Now a nice hood ornament gives you a point of reference, like a flag planted at the border of the car's sovereign territory, that says "here be the boundary!"

I want a flag, darn it.

Living Up to Averages

I just saw this car commercial that said "they say" the average person will own 12 cars in a lifetime.

I've only owned three so far, and I'm already at the midpoint of my statistical average life expectancy. I need to buy nine more cars! Quick!

OK. Breathe. It's going to be all right.

What I actually need is to buy nine more cars over the next roughly 40 years.

Or, and this is even more attractive, don't buy any more cars, and let someone else pick up the slack. You suckers can buy nine more cars. I'm taking the train and spending that money on video games.

Of course I realize it's not that simple. If you don't live in a city with public transportation, you basically have to have a car if you want to go places and do things.

It's not so much the fun, glamorous toy in the car commercial as it is a critical and frequently troublesome tool that costs a lot. And costs a lot again when you have to fix it.

Probably some person who can only afford old, poorly maintained cars that break a lot and need to be replaced is taking up my slack.

Sorry, person. If it helps, I had a 17-year-old Subaru with holes in the floor that never gave me any trouble. I hope you can get something like that. Maybe on the younger end of its useful life.

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Clever Road Tricks

How We Drive passes along news of a new type of speed bump (or, as it is called in New Mexico on all the signs warning you that one is ahead, speed hump*) currently in development!

This fine invention would be able to tell how fast you were driving, and if that was less than or equal to the speed limit, would sink into the road so you didn't have to slow way down and e-e-e-e-a-s-e over it so as not to knock your head on the roof of the car.

What a time to be alive...


*My sister and I once had a plan** to open a drive-through brothel, which was to be called the Speed Hump.

**By which I mean, we were decorating gingerbread houses. Holiday fun for the whole family!

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Risking Tickets

Slate has an article by Tom Vanderbilt about how traffic tickets serve the greater good.

I liked its point that many people tend to think of traffic violations as not 'real' crimes. Everyone does it, we think. And seriously, almost everyone does. Speeding must be the most common crime in the country. (I'm just guessing on that, and have no citation to back me up, so don't even ask.)

Just get on the the highway somewhere and you're surrounded (if not by people stuck in traffic and frustrated by the inability to go anywhere) by people blithely flouting the law.

I myself am strictly law-abiding in many ways (I dutifully declare my internet purchases for purposes of state sales tax), but I still disregard the speed limit. I don't habitually break traffic laws in other ways, although I've racked up a few parking tickets in my time, possibly since I rarely drive or need to park these days, but here I am, deciding which laws I want to obey and which I don't, exactly as one should not really be able to do in a society of law (right?).

I was particularly struck by this example of how we tend not to take traffic crimes seriously:

Even the most socially abhorrent driving crimes, like a fatal crash involving an alcohol-impaired driver, often evoke curiously lenient legal responses. Consider the nonautomotive case of Plaxico Burress, who accidentally shot himself with an unregistered, concealed gun. Stupid? Yes. Illegal. Yes. End result? A painful leg injury (to himself)—and two years in jail. Now compare that with fellow NFL player Leonard Little, who in 1998 ran a red light and smashed into a car whose driver died the next day from her injuries. Little was found to have a BAC of 0.19, more than twice the legal limit in the state of Missouri. Stupid? Yes. Illegal? Yes. End result? Another person lost her life. Little's sentence, compared with Burress', was minor: 90 days. He missed only eight football games and was able to keep his license.

Put like that, it does seem a little off.

The piece argues that traffic tickets are good in a couple of ways, one being that a lot of people wanted for more serious crimes are caught during traffic stops, and one being the suggestion that enforcing traffic laws is a way to encourage generally more lawful behavior, kind of the way that the 'broken windows' theory suggests that cracking down on petty crime will help keep neighborhoods free of more serious problems.

I don't know that I would ever actually want a traffic ticket, and I argued about a couple of mine (I contend that it's legitimate to contest tickets given for violating parking rules that were not posted), but in general I figure them's the breaks. If I'm violating a law, I know I'm taking the risk of a ticket.

The question then arises, given that I just admitted I speed practically whenever I drive, but have never gotten a speeding ticket, should we be getting more tickets, to even further advance the greater good?

After all, a lot of times you don't get pulled over for speeding. I've heard the argument that cops figure it's actually safe for most people to drive faster than the posted limit, but that having it lower than most people drive both keeps you from driving even faster, and gives them a reason to pull you over if they think you're doing something else you shouldn't be doing.

Either one of those notions could be dissected on its own, but I've already said too much.

For any reader's patience, I mean.

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Battling With My Blog Feeds

It turns out that paper tickets and not being allowed to check oneself in online are just as annoying for everyone as I expected. Oh well.

I am still trying to recover from some dedicated party-attending over the weekend that involved very limited sleep, but here are some things I liked this evening.

A reminder from Greta Christina that we should be involved in politics (I like the argument that it's a good idea whether you think politicians are honestly trying to do the right thing by their constituents, or are just trying to get re-elected: either way, they have a reason to listen to you!).

This interesting quote from How We Drive:

There are many words for what happens when people texting while driving crash, but “accident” is not one of them.

I could argue about that from a definitional standpoint--it's an accident if you didn't do it on purpose, after all, and presumably very few people crash on purpose--but it makes a telling point that if you choose to divert your attention from the road in order to send a text message, you can't exactly profess shock if you happen to not stay exactly on the road.

And some fascinating excerpts that Navelgazing Midwife has taken from A Nurse's Handbook of Obstetrics (linked copy digitized by Google, 7th edition copyright 1915, and, I deduce, once the possession of a certain Lane Library).

All are interesting, but for some reason I especially note that

When the baby is about two weeks old, the doctor probably will order one teaspoonful of freshly extracted strained orange juice to which an equal amount of boiled water may be added to prevent the baby from "choking."

I know we're into fruits and vegetables, but two weeks? I've never heard of anyone being advised to give food other than milk/formula to a two-week-old baby these days.

Brandy on the gums to soothe teething pains, yes, everyone I know still does that,* but orange juice?

*Note to Child Services on behalf of my child-having friends: this statement is a lie. Why would I make up a lie like that? It is a question that will bedevil the ages.

Reviewing a Thing or Two

Zipcar: Love it.

My sister is moving across town, and needed some stuff hauled from one place to another. Not a lot of stuff--a footlocker, some plastic storage bins, several boxes--but more than would easily fit into the single car belonging to my household.

So I reserved a little Zipcar SUV, easy as pie, and got the job done in a few hours for under $40. Even filled the tank with gas, which is included in the Zipcar rental.

Honda Element: Quite like it.

This was the little SUV I used, and I was quite pleased. I am not one of those people who really enjoys feeling that I'm driving a hulking behemoth that's eight feet off the ground, so this was a good option. It handles very nimbly and feels very manageable for something that holds as much as it does (easily one footlocker, two large plastic storage bins, and five or six large cardboard boxes--I forgot to count).

The rear seats fold up out of the way to make more room in the back, and this was easily accomplished with a quick review of the owner's manual. I don't necessarily want to ever own a car again, but if I should need to, and should want something that holds a fair amount, I would consider this vehicle. In the meantime, I'll certainly keep it in mind for the next time I need to haul some stuff.

Berryline Frozen Yogurt: Adore it!

If you have not had Berryline, and you are anywhere near Boston, you must go. There may be a line, especially on these hot evenings, but it usually moves pretty quickly, and is worth the wait. They do 'tart frozen yogurt,' which is a way of saying that it tastes more like regular yogurt.

Most frozen yogurt is sweeter and seems to be working on being indistinguishable from ice cream. And don't get me wrong, I enjoy that frozen yogurt, and I very much enjoy ice cream, but the slight tartness makes a taste sensation all its own. It's fantastic with fresh fruit.

Just try it.

All in all, it has been a most satisfactory evening.

Searching for Direction

Stephen's Lighthouse has good advice about getting to know Bing, Microsoft's new 'decision engine.'

Since it looks like being Google's main competition in the search engine field, as librarians we should be familiar with it, know what it can do well and be able to judge when it might be useful. I confess I've used it only casually, just to see what it looked like, but the advice is well taken.

I'll give it a try when I actually care about the results, and see what I think.

In other news, I took my MINI Cooper out for a spin today. I'm honestly a little too tall for it, and had to scrunch down a touch to look through the windshield and see whether lights had changed, but it's a fun little machine.

I look forward to enjoying some of my other cars in future, now that I have such a vast stable from which to choose (20+ within a few blocks of work alone!) I must say, I am liking the Zipcar experience.

One thing with which Zipcar cannot help me, however, is my nearly supernatural inability to ever get anywhere without mishap. Is there a wrong turn somewhere along this route? Let me at it!

Fortunately I was wary and went prepared with a number for the place I was going, so I was able to get straightened out that way.

It turned out the problem was that there are just too darn many Washington Streets, and I was on one of the ones that wasn't the one I wanted to be on.

That's practically a legitimate wrong turn, you know.