Car Culture was a Mistake Part 3: Everyone drives like a maniac

You say the laws are getting harder to obey 
And the rules 

are being broken every-day 
You got the picture, 

and now your time has come 

Anarchy is open season 

for everyone

- Mutiny on the World, Armored Saint (1984) 

Besides crime sprees and DUIs there are all those other traffic violations, drivers commit daily. 

Now some of this is the media sensationalism, which always always always will run with Crime is Out of Control and remember Crime is synonymous with cities and cities is synonymous with BLACKS! so these news stories on speeding and bad driving never get around to the reporting anything other than white people have Vibes that blacks are maniacs.  

So, for instance the recent story of a rich, white, super entitled toxic white man driving his Bentley at 100+mph towards the Rainbow Bridge POE is immediately recast by rightwing propagandists as a Terrorist attack by Hamas with Iranian passports because the the immediate lies told by conservatives are never really debunked but, become a sort of residual reminder about crime/the border/terrorism being bad under Democrats!

And as a matter of course, certain people get, fawning media pieces, which highlight their humanity and their struggles instead of being neatly slotted into the category of career criminal;

THIS IS NOT the sort of life Rebecca Grossman was supposed to be living.  The 58-year-old former flight attendant turned socialite was meant to be spending her middle years enjoying the bounties of upper-class privilege. Married to one of L.A.’s most successful plastic surgeons—Peter H. Grossman, founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation and whose father founded the Grossman Burn Center, which took in actress Anne Heche after a high-speed crash in Mar Vista in August and where Jay Leno was treated in November following a garage gas fire—she had everything a real housewife of Hidden Hills could possibly want: A $7.6 million nine-bedroom ranch house in a gated community right next door to a movie star (well, Lori Loughlin), a thriving family (two teenage kids and an adopted daughter—a young burn victim Grossman and her husband adopted from Afghanistan in 2002 so that she could be treated at Peter’s hospital—two horses, five dogs, and a 100-pound turtle), a wardrobe that would have Lisa Vanderpump biting her knuckles with envy, and an expensive—and, as it would turn out, fatefully fast—Mercedes coupe.  

The above story ends with media-crowned "socialite" Rebecca Grossman playing a "frisky game of cat and mouse" at 80+ mph, while driving drunk, obliterating two children while they walked in a crosswalk.  Being safely ensconced in a 5000 lb guided missile grants people the feeling of invulnerability.  There are many other factors at play here.  Everyone is habitually late for whatever appointment, job, meeting, yoga session, they have.  Everyone routinely uses their phone while driving.  Everyone underestimates the amount of traffic they will run into in the Chicago-land.

I don't believe in the red-light cameras and automated speed monitor tickets, it's just a back door tax on working class people.  Also we've seen how unscrupulous companies bribe susceptible politicians and then manipulate their systems in order to make violations happen.  Millions of dollars in fraudulent fines... 

And the Rules of the Road? Don’t make me laugh the vast majority of drivers treat the "Rules of the Road" as a loose guideline to be adhered to only when absolutely necessary (i.e. when they see a squad car).  No one ever drives the speed limit.  Ever.  School zones?  Fuck them kids.  Residential streets?  Whatever I'm Late!  Main thoroughfares, well 9 miles over isn’t really speeding!  Highways!  Highway to Hell at 100 miles per hour!

Police have themselves to blame only partly for this as 1) there are just way too many vehicles to stop and most departments are handling such a large volume of other calls (whether they should be or not) and 2) most drivers don't give a fuck.

Now, when most drivers see a squad car whether it be State, County, or Local they still slam on those brakes and observe the rules of the road I do think defensive driving and deference to Police while driving is a thing of the past because of the way Police departments have exhausted the good will with their unlawful and evil actions.  Once that capital is burned through, as it has been, it takes a lot of time to reaccumulate it and requires an extraordinary effort from Police.