It’s About Making Babies!

Alexis Madrigal at Wired.com writes about how traffic on California highways generates more co2 in nine (9) days than all the wildfires.

Only, she doesn’t cover the solution.

Space the cars out. CHP enforces speeding, but are negligent about enforcing other laws. Such as following too close. Nothing in the laws state that the minimum following limit changes when the car ahead slows or stops. The 200 feet limit is set when the posted speed is 45 mph or more. Otherwise it is 100 feet.

All Governor Arnie has to do to solve gridlock on the interstates, is to write tickets to everyone that stops closer than 200 feet to the car ahead.

What this does, is it avoids the accordion effect that happens when cars bunch up. Everyone slows down as the cars ahead slow. But no one can speed up again until the single car ahead moves out. So - everyone can slow at the same time, but each individual car’s ability to accelerate and each driver’s driving style stagger out speed up rates - and everyone behind someone accelerating slower than average is slowed relative to the rest of the road.

Why don’t drivers maintain the ’safe’ distance? Two reasons. One is aggressive driving - changing lanes more than twice in 1/2 mile, often violating safe separation distances if not aggressively assaulting other vehicles. Leave a bit of space ahead, and you risk getting clipped as an unruly driver targets you for attack.

The other is that following a ways back doesn’t help you. It doesn’t improve the time it takes you to reach your destination, it doesn’t affect whether you will be embroiled in stop and go traffic. What it does do, is make stop and go and slowdowns less likely for every driver *behind* you. Following at a safe distance reduces your risk of hitting the car ahead, and also reduces the stress of driving in traffic. And it is a gift you give those sharing the road behind you.

Slowdowns and stop and goes on the highway can only be solved by the cars in front. And leaving that extra 200 feet ahead of you, whether following the car ahead, stopping behind that car, or changing lanes, can help avoid slowing the cars behind you.

Because the trigger for slowdowns is the ‘flinch’. Someone lets their car slow, causing slowing behind (if they are following closely). Or an aggressive driver cuts in front of someone, causing them to slow to avoid a collision - making the cars following too close behind slow, and rippling back sometimes for miles.

And guess what, Houston and Los Angeles? If you enforce that silly rule, 200 feet between vehicles when the speed is 45 or greater, and everyone comes to a stop - a mile of interstate now emits 20-25% of the emissions as before! And think of how easy to enforce - send foot people into every stop and go lane, ticketing everyone closer than 200 feet to the car ahead!

There. That headline should be provocative enough to suit Time magazine. It plays with what their article, “Give Gloucester Girls a Break” says. The title isn’t actually correct with what it states, but Time set the example, don’t let facts stand in the way of a story.

Rachel Lucas was appalled at the coverage the story got, of 17 Sophomore class girls turning up pregnant at Gloucester High School in Massachusetts. One particular phrase of Rachel’s (she evidently felt strongly about the girls planning to get pregnant together) - marauding narcissistic sluts. Aynwyn’s Notes in the Margin covers the abuse Time made of the content and context of Rachel’s blog.

Today Time magazine wrote a kinder, gentler story. They focus on one assertion that several of the girls just turned up pregnant, and agreed to help each other with school and pregnancies. That they hadn’t planned to get pregnant, let alone as a group.

Aside from this bit of quibbling, the Time article is fascinating in several ways. The officials quoted, to a man, claimed the incident of mass pregnancies was due to their pet empire not getting enough funding. It is amazing how many different organizations and offices would have prevented the 17 girls from getting pregnant - if only they had more money in their budget.

Also fascinating is that there were no charges filed for statutory rape. 17 girls, age 15-16 come up pregnant. *Someone* underage has to be committing statutory rape, including the girls that got pregnant. Why no criminal charges? Why isn’t law enforcement mentioned in the Time article? One of the girls’s 20 year old boyfriend is specifically identified. Why are they all still unmarried - about the only way to beat a statutory rape rap.

Unless the moral, social, and legal breakdown of authority is so complete, that the kids there are growing up in the cultural equivalent of the poorest of the original American colonies.

And Time magazine is proud to point out that some bloggers blame the girls for getting pregnant. Certainly none of the girls have filed criminal charges of rape and assault against anyone. Which means that the girls were active in getting pregnant.

The point of Time’s article? That the extremely high number of pregnancies in Gloucester High’s Sophomore class is due to girls electing to carry their baby, instead of getting an abortion.

I suppose we assume all of this is near-adult, consensual sex that got 17 girls pregnant at the same time. That none were the victims of incest. But there aren’t any charges filed, so the assaults (minors are legally incapable of consent) or promiscuity or whatnot is apparently not of concern to the editors and publishers at Time magazine, nor to their readers, I guess. I had thought that the concept was that sex with kids and young adults was bad for them, aside from possible pregnancies.

I have to say, Rachel probably called this as close to correct as anyone. The girls are antisocial pigs, irresponsible, undisciplined, and of weak character. Whether they are rebelling and choosing to violate laws and flirt with venereal disease and pregnancy, or whether they are emotionally immature and still acting childishly, they were not good examples of good young women.

One presumes, if they are allowed to suffer the consequences of their actions, that they will mature quickly in the coming (9) months.