Consuming Violation
Quoth the New York Times (use 'annoying' for login and password):
He walked to the car and, from a stack in his hand, took out a card colored the bright orange of a New York City parking ticket and imprinted with the word "violation." He slipped it under the windshield wiper.
The owner of the car was in for a bout of that stomach-dropping feeling that accompanies the discovery of a ticket. But Mr. Edmonds and Ms. Benson, friends in their 20's, are not with the Police Department. The card was a message from people who hate sport utility vehicles, and the "violation" was owning one.
"Did you get excited when you saw that ad for an S.U.V. in the remote wilderness?" the text on the fake ticket read. "Did you want to sue the manufacturer for false advertising when you started driving it to the shopping center instead?" It went on — at some length — to castigate S.U.V.'s for their gasoholic tendencies and S.U.V. drivers for buying them.
"'Maybe, just maybe, it's because my wife and myself have lost a son in an accident and want my family to be safe. Try losing a child.'"
I hope they responded to that guy with the stats on how safe SUVs *aren't*--both for their own passengers and for (gasp) other people's children. It's an attempt to make people feel irrationally guilty for rational decisions, and it's a low blow--I really doubt that the ticket brought back the pain of his possible loss of a child, unless he lost the kid to a parking violation. And it just doesn't make any sense.
I really, really hate that intentions are supposed to be enough: if you *intend* to make your family safer, the rest of us should back off and say, in hushed voices, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know." Bullshit. If you mean well, take the time to do some research so you can also *do* well. Because if you don't mean well enough to read ubiquitous safety reports when you're concerned with safety, I'm not convinced you mean very well at all.
Err...sorry. Go back to what you were doing. I'll find something else to fuss about here.
Posted by Mris on August 24 2002 06:45
Where are there any rational decisions involved here?
These people are going to get themselves killed. Driving SUVs may be dangerous, but it can't be nearly as dangerous as putting fake parking tickets on cars in NYC. I'm not sure what would be. A neutron star might be close.
Posted by Timprov on August 24 2002 10:13
=v= This effort has been part of the plot of this week's Doonesbury comic strip.
Posted by Jym on September 5 2002 21:43