Tuesday, September eleventh, two-thousand one. A miserable day. I was a student at the University of Arizona, and the school did not have a communications plan in place to cope with the nation’s unimagined new reality. Dismayed by the events unfolding, but unsure what else to do, I drove in for my scheduled classes precisely as did many other students. Our professors were at least as distraught as were we students. (My first scheduled professor was late to class: She was so frantic over the terrorist attacks, she managed to hit a bicyclist with her car on the way in.) My second scheduled professor of the day had tremendous reason not to be in her right mind that morning: She knew many people who should have reported to work in the twin towers that fateful day. And she had not yet heard from any of them.
That professor remains fixed in my mind, not only because of her raw, pure, human emotion during one of the darkest days in our country’s history, but because she was an educator’s educator. So compelled to educate was she, that she went beyond simply teaching her classes to developing personally the remarkably sophisticated web applications she had her students use to complement her classes. And, above and beyond her work to bring course material to her students in the most accessible and innovative means possible, she was powerfully effective in the classroom. She was, far and away, one of the most engaging, intelligent, genuine, talented, dedicated, effective professors of my higher education career.
And now I can only hope I expressed my deep and heartfelt appreciation for her while she was alive.
Early in 2015, Dr. Sharon Garrison tragically succumbed to injuries sustained when a vehicle struck her at a curve in the road while she was out for a walk with a friend.
To the best that I can tell, the driver never received a citation, and no accusation of texting or other handheld device distraction played a factor in this tragic loss.
I sat engrossed in conversation this past weekend with a good friend over a glass of a fine wine he was so gracious to pour. Naturally, conversation drifted into local politics and the mess that is our County Board of Supervisors. The Board will vote next week on a ban on handheld devices. My friend made a powerful argument: “Steve, if it saves one life, it’s worth doing.”
An argument with which no rational person can disagree.
However, passing a law does not necessarily change human behavior: Drivers who find this new ordinance inconvenient will work harder to conceal their texting, keeping phones lower and diverting their eyes from the roadway for longer. Drivers who try to use intelligent mapping applications to escape the poorest-quality Pima County roads and the insufferable traffic and construction risk punishment for simply using the technology available to them.
Moreover, I have to wonder how few souls have perished in Pima County at the fault of a device-distracted driver, and how many, many more have perished in Pima County as pedestrians, struck down by drivers who were doing nothing wrong.
For a span of a few years recently, it appeared that another pedestrian lost his or her life to the Tucson roads about every other day.
I do not agree that this is a necessary action for the Board; whether or not Pima County enacts a ban on handheld devices at the wheel, I reject the assertion that the Board of Supervisors stands to save a life. Unfortunately, instead of enforcing existing distracted driving laws, I expect the Board will be happy to add more regulatory burden to the citizenry. But, for the sake of argument, assume that one person–perhaps someone you love, perhaps a pillar of this community, perhaps you, perhaps me–will not die because the County directed the Sheriff’s Office to enforce a handheld device ban.
But how many more lives than just that one could the County preserve if it focused its efforts and our law enforcement professionals on pedestrian safety?
I am not enamored of the obtrusive and driver-maddening “HAWK” crossings scattered around town–you know, those flashing red crosswalk stoplights that confuse the daylights out of every driver that encounters them–but maybe a few more of those in very strategic locations could help. Or maybe, by making it very obvious that jaywalking on busy roads in Pima County will invariably earn you a citation, the Supervisors could help keep our pedestrians out of traffic. Or perhaps a few more miles of sidewalk and higher curbs or barriers could save the unsuspecting person out for her constitutional when a car fails to negotiate its turn.
Maybe, just maybe, if the County had taken that kind of action several years ago, I could have looked up Dr. Garrison today and dropped her a note of gratitude.
Instead of adding more and redundant laws to the books, shouldn’t our elected leaders focus on the real cause of death on Pima County roads?