Tag Littering

Cleanliness is next to the side of the road

Michael Leave a comment

The story goes that back in the Sixties, Lady Bird Johnson needed a “First Lady Project.”  Back then the First Ladies didn’t plan on making a run for their own presidency their project.  They concentrated on more homey topics.  One of Mrs. Johnson’s was litter.  Actually, it was anti-litter, particularly along our highways.  The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 was the result of her campaign to make the American roadsides more beautiful places.   The Act mostly addressed billboards and roadside businesses, but there was a third part that concerned itself with cleaning up those roads.

Keep America Beautiful isn’t just a slogan, it’s a non-profit organization founded in 1953 with exactly that goal in mind.  For sixty years and now through 563 affiliates, KAB promotes keeping it clean.  Between Mrs. Johnson, Keep America Beautiful, and the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who spend every weekend somewhere picking up roadside trash, you’d think the US highway system would be clean enough to eat off.  We’re here to tell you it isn’t.

Now that spring is here and the mounds of snow aren’t lining the highways, mounds of plastic bags, sandwich containers, bottles, cans, pieces of furniture, whole furniture, mattresses, old clothes, cardboard boxes, dead animals, and car parts line the highways.  That’s not a theoretical list, that’s what we have actually seen, with our own eyes, just over the past few days.  We wonder how some of the stuff gets there.  He of We was driving along an Interstate highway when he had to do a double-take to make sure that was a set of 4 chairs along the median.  She of We pointed out a front bumper of what appeared to be a late model car.  Now we have to ask, if there was an accident and it pulled away your bumper, shouldn’t someone take it along with the dead car when it gets towed away?

So enough of this littering.  First of all, we want everyone to stand up, raise his or her right hand, and swear (or affirm) that nobody will ever throw anything out of a moving or un-moving vehicle.  If you finish your Big Mac you will wait until you get home to throw away the bag.  If you are hiding unauthorized eating from your spouse or partner, stop at a gas station before you get home and throw the evidence away in one of their cans.

Now that we can prevent a little, let’s clean up a lot.  We want everyone to pick up the trash that is in front of your house.  It’s there.  It might only be an egg carton that fell out of the trash can when the garbage detail was out last week, or a few cigarette butts that somebody tossed out a window since cars don’t have ashtrays any more.  Pull on a pair of gloves and clean up your space.  “I didn’t do it” is not an excuse.

And finally, if you should have an accident, and believe us when we say we hope there are never any more accidents, but if you should have one, please clean up your car parts.

Now, let’s get out there and do some Spring Cleaning for everyone in the world to enjoy.  Or next week we’ll tell you about Lady Bird’s other projects with the Head Start Program.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Road Rage

Michael Leave a comment

He of We lives between 5 and 6 miles north of city center of the major downtown He and She live near.  She of We lives 5 to 6 miles south of that same center of town.  Those ten to twelve miles get a lot of use out of Both of We’s tires.

Last night He of We was travelling those few miles on a dark and rainy night when a shot rang out.  Well, when a pickup truck pulled down an entrance ramp and shot out into traffic like it was a speeding bullet.  No emergency lights, no turn signal, no brake lights indicating he had intended to yield like the sign suggested.  Just shot out into traffic.  But it was ok because he was going about 10 miles an hour faster than the main line traffic which was going about 15 miles an hour faster than the posted speed limit signs suggested.

Every day we’re noticing a disturbing trend.  Nobody is obeying the law.  The traffic laws.  Even the littering laws are routinely broken.  Why do people feel justified to toss empty fast food bags and cups, worn gloves, or half-eaten chickens out their windows?  Is it a sense of entitlement?  Do they feel that since every mile of US highway has been “adopted” by some civic group, local business, or religious order that somebody has to give these volunteers something to do the third Saturday of every month?  (If you are secretly one of these, wait till you get to work to throw out the coffee cup and breakfast sandwich wrapper.  Nobody will think less of you if they spy you tossing trash from one of the billions of fast food drive throughs rather than the artisan bread and breakfast kiosk. That’s how there got to be billions of them.)

But we digress.  What is it about traffic laws that beg to be broken?  Stop and yield signs are there only for the local high school graduates to emblazon with their graduation year.  Speed limit signs are routinely run over but less routinely replaced.  One Way, No U-Turn, and No Left Turn signs are more outdoor art than even suggestions.   No Turn on Red signs might as well not be printed and mounted at all even though they appear at every intersection with a traffic light.

The problem with the traffic law breakers (besides breaking the law), is that they aim their rage when they are thwarted at law breaking by the occasional law abiding sign observer.  They tailgate, weave, and race their way down the road, taking time to turn and mouth obscenities at the ones who are going only 5 to 10 miles faster than the limit which lumps them with the slow moving vehicles.

Imagine if somebody suggested that breaking traffic laws is the gateway crime.  We’re not sure we agree with that.  We don’t believe that once you get over the thrill of turning on red it’s just a matter of time until you want to pull tags off mattresses or smoke in elevators.  We are sure that breaking the traffic laws doesn’t come without some penalty.  You don’t have to watch too many editions of the evening news before you hear of somebody who launched a car over a guiderail and into a grove of trees ejecting the driver and killing the passengers.     

Some people say it’s the boom of cell phones, GPS units, radios with multiple bands, MP3 players with thousands of songs, and other distractions that make people drive fast and recklessly.  Some believe it’s because Drivers’ Ed has disappeared from the high schools and is replaced by Moms and Dads who (sorry) are part of the problem themselves. 

Whether it’s distraction, knowledge deficit, the thrill of handling 2,000 pounds of anything, or enjoying that last morsel of sausage, egg, and cheese on a muffin before tossing the wrapper out of a vehicle moving faster than a last century’s high speed trains, breaking the law is breaking the law.  So slow down, read a bumper sticker, and arrive alive.  That’s a rage that’s all the rage that we can live with. 

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?