Yesterday I pointed out that banning guns, or alcohol, or whatever, because they are misused by people, is missing the point. If people's choices, characters and behaviors are the problem, banning an object, a thing, won't solve it. Only changing the true underlying cause(s) will cure it.
Today we see yet another example of that.
It’s the most devastating mistake imaginable: Parents killing their own children when they accidentally back their vehicles over them.
Dozens of children have died in such accidents this year alone. Technology exists that could eliminate drivers’ blind spots and prevent the accidents from occurring — so why hasn't the government required it?
Six years ago, Congress mandated a new rear-visibility standard for all new cars and gave the U.S. Department of Transportation a 2011 deadline to get it done. But the reforms have been delayed four times now, and the DOT says it needs until 2015 to put requirements in place.
Now safety groups and victims’ families are teaming up to fight for faster results. On Wednesday morning, they are filing a federal lawsuit demanding that the DOT require rear-view cameras in all new vehicles.
There's more at the link.
Friends, allow me to assure you of one thing. If those parents had made damn sure they knew where their kids were at all times; if they'd bothered to do a walk-around of their vehicles before getting in and starting them; if they'd made sure that their kids were supervised, and not free to wander where they pleased; then none of those fatalities would have occurred. If rear-view cameras are mandated on all vehicles, as they want, some children will still be run over by their parents from time to time, because some of the latter will still be bloody irresponsible!
I know many will say that the cameras may save a proportion of those who would otherwise be run over. That's true. Some irresponsible people may be saved from the consequences of their irresponsibility in some instances. However, the cure for the problem is not to burden everybody with increased costs and vehicle complexity. The cure is to get parents to be responsible adults . . . but that's a pipe-dream. It will never happen. There will always be irresponsible parents, and as a result, children will go on dying in this way, rear-view cameras or no rear-view cameras.
That's the way it is. It's been that way since the dawn of time, and it'll be that way until the heat death of the universe. Human nature remains as fickle as ever it was.
*Sigh*
Peter
