Clicking on banner ads keeps JWR alive
Jewish World Review March 30, 2000 /23 Adar II, 5760

Greg Crosby

Greg Crosby
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
David Corn
Ann Coulter
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch

Econophone

Trakdata


Speed Bumps

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- SPEED BUMPS. They’re showing up on more and more residential streets then ever before. City workers can’t seem to construct them fast enough. This is a relatively new thing -- at least at the rate that they are currently being proliferated. So, why all of a sudden are speed bumps so necessary? How come society didn’t need speed bumps before now, say in the nineteen-thirties or the forties or the fifties? Why didn’t we have them in the sixties? Or even the seventies. What’s changed?

Are we driving faster today? Maybe so, but it’s more complicated than that. There are many more people than there used to be. The pace of living has quickened and people in a hurry have become more reckless. Drivers tend to be more self-absorbed and less concerned with others around them. Everyone has a lot on their minds. People don’t obey traffic laws as much as they once did. Not enough traffic cops to enforce the laws. For these reasons, and others, we now have speed bumps in our streets.

But the fundamental reason there are speed bumps in the streets is that people can’t or won’t control themselves. It’s just that simple. And when people stop using self-control in a given situation, you can bet government will step in to control that situation for them.

Hence, speed bumps in the streets. Not in all of our streets, yet -- but it’s coming to that. I mean why stop at residential streets? Might just as well stick them across busy boulevards and avenues.

And while we’re at it, why not install speed bumps on the freeways? That would be a good way to control speeders and keep people in their proper lanes, too. It could work like this: the slow lane, the one furthest to the right, would have, say, one speed bump every forty or fifty feet. The next lane to the left would have its bumps spaced every eighty to one hundred feet. The next lane would have its bumps every one hundred fifty feet, and so on until you reach the fast lane, which would have a speed bump every five or six hundred feet.

We might consider the installation of speed bumps in the aisles of airplanes to keep wild little children from running up and down. The same goes for the aisles in movie theaters and concert halls.

Hey, how about speed bumps in bicycle lanes? Just a little something to slow down those guys in their spandex suits who never look or slow down when turning a corner, crossing an intersection, or sailing into traffic.

But what we really need are speed bumps in the supermarket aisles. That would certainly slow down all those crazed women who run through the market on their way home from work using their shopping carts as weapons and taking corners on two wheels. And let’s put horns on those shopping carts while we’re about it (the kind that honk, not gore).

The introduction of speed bumps into our culture is only one small example of our changing world. Interesting, isn’t it, how society changes over time? We lock the doors and windows in our homes and many of us now alarm them with security systems, where once not that long ago, people didn’t worry about such things. Originally my neighborhood had a wide-open country/ranch feeling to it, with corral fences or no fences at all between properties. Today more than half of the homeowners where I live have sealed themselves in with electronic security gates and prison-like high iron fences and walls. In a sense, security systems and high walls act as speed bumps for burglars, I suppose.

Too bad we haven’t been able to invent speed bumps for fast talking trial lawyers and certain smarmy politicians. Wouldn’t it be terrific to put the brakes on a few of those weasels who just can’t seem to control themselves?


JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. You may contact him by clicking here.

Up

03/22/00: The Eyes Have It
03/15/00: Academia and Media --- They’re Just Not Right
03/09/00: Sweat The Small Stuff -- It’s Okay
03/02/00: Actors And Other Animals
02/23/00: Campaign 2000 --- Wake Me When Its Over
02/15/00: Who Wants to be Regis Philbin?
02/08/00: Aftermath of a Tragedy
01/31/00: Ask Mr. Politically Correct Man
01/25/00: I’d Like To Thank All The Little People
01/20/00: Merger Mania
01/11/00: Just Say JA-GWAAR
01/04/00: Who Was That Masked Man? My Hero!
12/28/99: New Millennium --- New Rules
12/21/99: Bubba’s Visit From Saint Nick
12/14/99: Call Me Mister
12/08/99: So Much Going On, So Little Time
11/30/99: Sunday Afternoon
11/22/99: The Best Money Can’t Buy
11/15/99: My Peter Pan Generation
11/08/99: Fall Invasion
10/29/99: When my wife was young and Gay
10/22/99: Too Late for Dinner
10/15/99: Pondering, Musing and Supposing
10/05/99: A Message From Your Journalistic Human Interest Commentator
09/24/99: The Getting Away With It Decade
09/17/99: The Scoop of the Century
09/09/99: Important Millennium Advisory
09/03/99: Ask Mr. Politically Correct Man
08/26/99: Broadcasters, Please mind Your Manners
08/19/99: The Golden Age of Jerkdom
08/12/99: Dressing Down...and Out


© 2000, Greg Crosby