By Anaik Alcasas, 29
Mother of one adorable son, United States
Second-generation member of the Family International

A few individuals have turned their vehicles toward some goal they believe will bring them satisfaction. But rather than taking the recommended route, they’ve decided to take a shortcut through a certain residential area. They also believe that the laws of the road don’t apply to them any more, and have decided they shouldn’t have to pay heed to speed limits, stoplights, or yield signs.

This residential area is teeming with children. There are babies and toddlers, young carefree kids, and trendy teenagers. Their parents are walking with them, holding the babies, leading the kids by the hand, shadowed by their teens. They’ve always expected to be safe where they live. They have a right to be safe.

But someone has decided that, so long as the destination is “justice,” anyone who happens to be “in the way” must be volunteering for the profession of road kill. Others have even decided to treat this reckless driving like a sport, to publicize and–unbelievably–to justify the personal road-rage-style sentiments as certain people careen recklessly through what was once a quiet neighborhood. The safety of others doesn’t seem to matter any more, because “somewhere back there” in another time and place, an injustice occurred.

Where are the traffic police in this scenario? They must be on lunch break. Reckless endangerment is a specific traffic offense in some parts of the world–you don’t even have to hit anyone to qualify for a fine.

I Googled up the term “reckless endangerment” and found the following definition on a website called “Washington State Legislature”:

Reckless endangerment.
(1) A person is guilty of reckless endangerment when he or she recklessly engages in conduct not amounting to drive-by shooting but that creates a substantial risk of death or serious physical injury to another person.

(2) Reckless endangerment is a gross misdemeanor.

Granted, I’m speaking figuratively. It’s a word picture to describe how I see the latest horrendous allegations of a few, that seem intended not to seek legitimate amends for past wrongs, but to hurt many.

On About.com, the US military goes a little further in their definition of the term “reckless”:

(3) Recklessness. “Reckless” conduct is conduct that exhibits a culpable disregard of foreseeable consequences to others from the act or omission involved. The accused need not intentionally cause a resulting harm or know that his conduct is substantially certain to cause that result. The ultimate question is whether, under all the circumstances, the accused’s conduct was of that heedless nature that made it actually or imminently dangerous to the rights or safety of others.

So to you who are endangering the rights and safety of my baby, my small nieces and nephews, and the children of my friends and peers in the Family, I say, please park your car. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Nobody says you can’t seek justice if you truly qualify–taking the proper and established routes to do so–but nothing justifies the road rage a few of you are displaying and the reckless endangerment you’re causing to innocent and defenseless children.

Oh, did I say defenseless? Because I just remembered there is allusion to a standing fine for the kind of driving you’re doing–traffic police or no–so I’ll leave you with a reminder of what it is, and a hint that for the safety of yourself and all those around you, you might want to park your car and take the bus.

But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.–Jesus
(Matthew 18:6, KJV)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 23rd, 2005 and is filed under Speaking Out, By Age, Where From, North America, 25 to 35, Archived. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.