The Shotgun Solution

Several months ago I moved to the Washington DC/Baltimore area from California. Well ok that is not entirely true. In-between moving to Maryland from California I made a six and a half month pit stop in Texas. However, with the exception of a few great people I met there, and far less cool things I did there, I prefer to try and block the overall experience from memory.

If there is one thing that is true of all three places however, it is that public transportation cannot be readably relied upon to get around. True in certain areas of California, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, there are fairly good transit systems in place. And the Metro system in Washington D.C. is not bad either. But if you want to be able to get from one major area to the next on even a semi-regular basis you ultimately you need a car.

Having lived in California most of my life, I have often heard that California drivers are among the worst in the country. Never having lived anywhere else as a driver I had no sense of how true or untrue that really was. Now that I do live somewhere else where I drive regularly I can say that if California drivers are among the worst than without question the drivers out here are simply the worst.

If people drove in California the way many people do on the Beltway they would be shot. Indeed, there may very well be a connection between the fact that Washington D.C. has one of the highest murder rates in the nation and the fact that people out here have no sense of common decency on the road. It also helps to explain why traffic on the beltway is ranked among the worst in the country as well.

One thing that I can’t seem to get my head around is the thought process that leads someone to believe that by weaving in out of traffic, never getting any farther than maybe a car length ahead of where they were, they will somehow get to their destination faster. I am not certain how exactly to get the notion that such driving only makes traffic worse across to people, but I have at least one idea.

Back when carriages were not horseless and people traveled by wagon there were two positions a person might take if they were sitting on the outside. One was the driver. He held the reins to instruct the horses on whether or not to stop, go, decrees, and increase speed… Then there was the the second guy, who took the position of “shotgun”, where he sat next to the driver of the carriage with a shotgun in hand. His job was to defend against bandits and pissed off Native Americans. The message was clear; if you come to this carriage with ill intent you are likely to get your fucking head blown off.

I would like to see this old and forgotten tradition of defensive driving be allowed to return to the highways of the Beltway. With a shotgun-armed friend at my side while driving through traffic, I believe I could send a very clear message to many drivers. If you act like a dumb ass on the road, thereby adding to the problem of traffic, your presence on said road will be terminated. Permanently! In theory, if people think that they are likely to get shot for their aggressive behavior, their sense of self preservation will kick in, they will chill the fuck out, and just maybe everyone will get to their destinations in a more timely manner.