Several months ago I saw a dead man on the road. The death happened on a major state highway which cut right through a medium-sized city and whose speed limit is set (by people we will never know) at 45 MPH. The man was wearing biker garb and lying face down next to his Harley-Davidson with a couple of solemn woman over him who had come to his care, but it was too late. As I drove by the scene, I could see the pool of blood underneath the man, who seemed to be in his 50s or 60s. I can only image what the two women might have seen. I can only imagine how bad it hurt the man’s friends and family when they were first informed of his death.
But could anarchy have prevented this man’s untimely death?
I was working at the time and had two errands to do that brought me by the scene twice more. When I had come back by the first time, a police officer had the man turned over with a short blanket over him leaving his feet sticking out. I mean, really? It could not have been any clearer to the passing motorists what lie beneath the cover. How many people saw it, I could not speculate. It was around lunch time. There was plenty of traffic. I remember thinking at the time how unnecessary it was to leave the man in the road. He’s dead. The police didn’t have a camera? At least cover his feat out of respect. I am not sure what to think about that. Was the police officer sending a message to all motorists, “See, this is what happens when you do not obey our laws!”. If I set my cynicism aside, it’s possible that the government enforcer’s (I said I set my cynicism aside, not my sarcasm) Standard Operating Procedure requires the deceased to remain there, not tampered, until the coroner arrived. But the cop did turn the man over, potentially contaminating the scene in that respect. The last time I passed by the coroner had arrived. The ordeal was essentially done.
The big question is: Could anarchy have prevented this from happening.
I certainly do not know that entire nature of the accident. I don’t know how it happened. Another vehicle could have been involved. Yet this particular highway seems to have an inordinate amount of accidents, mostly within intersections. This man died, I would estimate, about sixty feet before he entered an intersection.
From an educated anarchist’s view, the root cause of these accidents has to be the government’s traffic laws, themselves. The laws create unsafe conditions for motorists since government officials simply do not have enough information to determine who should have the right-of-way and who should not. Just like governments do not really know what money to give to what group or person without any true feedback mechanism. That’s why socialism doesn’t work. Not only that, the traffic laws and traffic lights create a false sense of safety, which encourages reckless driving and speeding.
If right-of-way laws were rescinded and our roadways were “governed” by common-law, then people would all have equal rights. No one traveling in a certain direction or going at a certain speed would have rights over another. For instance, any motorist pulling into an intersection first has the right to be there. Anyone approaching perpendicular to that motorist must allow them to pass through first before entering the intersection. It’s like a grandma crossing in front of you slowly in a store and allowing her pass before you proceed. You don’t have a right to just run her over because she is taking too much time. That is “commonly” understood. No law is necessary here.
Without government traffic laws everyone would be forced to pay attention, to not speed, and to not dangerously assume a right over another. But this is just theory, isn’t it? Would removal of the laws so many of us believe are necessary really result in safer roads? Look for yourself. Watch the videos of it put into action in a town where traffic lights were removed. Do you think road conditions improved?
For more info go to: equalitystreets.com
If you watched the videos you can clearly see that government, in this case, had been insufficient in providing safe and efficient traffic for their citizens. The answer to the bad traffic conditions here was anarchy. Really. People were just told that no one had the right-of-way. They weren’t given any new law, and that is all it took to improve the flow of traffic. Motorists just operated under anarchy.
But . . . could the dead man in the road have been saved by removal of traffic laws? Who really knows? Like I said, I don’t know the nature of the accident. Maybe he fell asleep or had an adverse reaction to medication and drugs and ran into another vehicle. All I do know is that the conditions around the man at the time would have been safer if the laws were rescinded.
If you look the subtitle of this post, it reads “An anarchist’s failure”? Who’s? Well, maybe mine. I had an opportunity to possibly do something about the highway where the dead man died. I had reached out to a local government official about implementing equality streets in the town, just like in the videos. The government dude argued that it wouldn’t make much difference in most of the streets, anyway, and I had to agree with him. But he did not discount that I was right. The main danger, he said, was the highway that cut through the center of town, essentially acting as the city’s “Main Street”. If I wanted to do anything about that, I would have to contact the state about it. As an anarchist, the thought of dealing with more government people made me uneasy. Yeah, I’m just not into pleading for my freedoms. And long story short: I went no further with it.
But this failure is not just the failure of one. We are all to blame. What we have been trying hasn’t worked to this point. But we keep chugging along, doing the same things over and over. The people just don’t listen. Anyone can see that if they’re honest. Maybe it’s time to look at people differently. If we do, we can adjust our approach. Read me previous post for more on that.
Well . . . That’s all folks!
P.S. My next post might be about why people don’t listen or I might tell another story or I might post a conspiracy theory. Either way. I’ll try to keep posting.
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