Digression into intellectual property - and kiddieland yet again!
In my last post, I said we'd left kiddieland. But I couldn't help but first think of the Disney/Pixar movie, Cars, as I wrote the above title.
But of course if you've been reading, you know by now I'm not likely to post a photo of any of the movie's characters - that would infringe upon copyright. But, if I took a photo of a line drawing that my daughter had coloured in, which was from a book bearing said copyrighted photos on the front, would that infringe on copyright?
What do you think? Remember, there's possibly $50 worth of book shopping in it for you if you post a comment this month...
OK, now here's the topic already - messages drivers send each other
Once while on a Girls' Roadtrip, one of my travelling companions said, "You know, I find it amazing how all the cars just blink their lights, and we respond by moving over. It's such a neat way that we communicate!"
I want to write today about how vehicles - and of course, the people controlling them - communicate while on the road. But I'm referring to the other things we do with our vehicles outside of conventional signals that communicate things about us (especially since so many people don't bother to signal anyway - grrrr).
I was thinking about this on the way to drop my daughter at daycare this morning. It's only about a km from our house, and I usually take her there along the residential sidestreets.
On one of the streets along our route, there are a couple of enormous houses being built. In fact, they've been being built for more than a year now. And now that it's spring, the projects have picked up steam again. That means lots of cars and trucks on either side of the street in front of the two houses.
So now, traffic is limited to about 1.3 lanes, on a street built to comfortably hold one lane each way, with maybe one lane to squeeze onstreet parking. That was before one knew what SUV stood for (though our suburb probably saw its share of farm and dirt trucks when the road was built).
This narrowing has resulted in an ongoing game of "chicken" between drivers approaching from either direction - a game in which I admit to participating myself. It goes like this: I see an approaching vehicle; I assume that driver sees me. I then size up the vehicle. Is it a Honda or a Hummer? Is the driver slowing down? How far over are they moving?
I'm usually driving either our li'l 2002 Jetta, or a slightly larger Passat. So my question is always the same: "Should I speed up and zip through the space before they do, and will they wait for me to? And would we both fit if we went through together?" Essentially, if possible, I want to get where I'm going without stopping too often (yah, I'm a bit of a Type-A driver). And I assume most others feel that way, too.
Already, I'm looking for a bunch of different signals about what the other person plans to do. And, you could say that in this jockeying for position, I'm revealing some things about my personality as well. I'm also looking for messages about other people's personalities based on whether they speed up or slow down.
And, I'm making judgments about what they'll do based on the vehicle they have: not only whether our cars would physically fit through the gap together, but also about that person's level of aggression and sense of entitlement based on their choice of vehicle. The Honda driver would likely seem to me less likely to charge (unless outfitted with a 4-inch-wide dual-pipe exhaust) than would the one with the Hummer.
Another message drivers send - at least in my book - is through their choice to talk on the phone, put on makeup, listen to their iPods or read the paper while driving. To me, they all communicate the same thing: "I am very busy and must do this other thing now, even though it might compromise my driving. Therefore, my time is more important than my or someone else's safety."
Do I come off as just ranting and being judgmental about other drivers? Perhaps. And I'm certain other drivers have not liked being behind me, either. But I've formed those opinions based on the messages I've received from others while sharing the road with them.
Overload on the road
More research results are starting to support my opinion about what happens to people's attention span when they're driving and doing something else at the same time.
That "something else" has been the subject of many a chortling highway cop's news appearance on the Monday news; anyone who's grown up in Ontario has seen them - those segments on the completely whacked out things people have been caught doing while on the way home from the cottage: eating a super-mega plate of nachos, rolling a cigarette, balancing a beer on one's head while driving with his knees...the stories are legion!
But, seriously, this is another example of how we are cognitively impaired when we try to do too many tasks at the same time. Our brains only have so much RAM to go on (and you probably all know someone who you think functions on much less capacity than most!)
And, you probably have all experienced being behind a driver who is obviously having a brain lapse, as they drive 20km/hour in a 60 zone, and the silhouette of their head looks like it has a hand and a phone attached.
I'm not usually one to get behind a "corporate" cause, but if you're interested in what's been found on the subject in Canada, check out the cellphone study posted on the Insurance Bureau of Canada's Click On This site. Or, Google "distracted driving" to see what else has been learned on the subject. I know it makes me stop and think before taking that call while commuting home.
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3 comments:
I think this is a fascinating post which brings to the forefront the issue of stereotyping in general and more specifically, illustrates that beyond the classic categories of race, gender and social class, we also classify people according to their possessions and/or use of commodities.
We think that by knowing the type of car a person drives (or whether or not they drive at all), that by extension, we can know something meaningful and true about what type of person that driver is off the road. Of course we all know that in actuality, the moral fibre of said driver has no intrinsic relationship to the means by which they get from point A to B.
All of us depend on stereotypes to some extent to navigate our daily lives as we are naturally inclined to simplify the world with labels and categories. (When I talk about stereotypes, I’m talking beyond the popular conception of stereotypes in relation to marginalized groups) Stereotypes allow us to instantly size up others, anticipate their behaviour and plan our response accordingly.
For example, in a game of “chicken” on the suburban streets of the G.T.A., the use of a stereotype lets us make a quick assessment about whether or not we should try to outrun that Hummer, because after all, we all know what kind of people drive Hummers! (Note sarcasm)
While one could debate whether this is “right” or “wrong”, the reality remains that this is how the majority of us make sense of the world around us and we merely need to recognize that stereotypes, while useful in some contexts, are generalizations which have the potential to distort or overlook important information about others.
Finally, if all else fails and you are accused of stereotyping, just insert a little home-grown comedy of Russell Peters who argues that he doesn’t make up the stereotypes; he just points them out when he sees them!
Hi Natalie, and thanks for your comment.
Yes, it's very telling that I stereotyped in my assessment of drivers and their behaviour. In a way, that's the point: once again, everything communcates something, and we receive and interpret messages - however judgmental our interpretation - based on behaviour and signals (or, lack thereof, as often happens with inconsiderate driving...okay, will stop before I go off on another rant.)
Thanks for your post, Natalie.
And you've kind of hit on the point in discussing the stereotyping going on in my post: that we receive messages from everything, and that everything causes us to make interpretations based on those messages. Our interpretations of signals and signs in others' behaviour (or lack of signals, in the case of rude drivers - ok no more ranting) often cause us to make judgments - in fact, it's how stereotypes were born.
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