Elitists
- Posted by ryan on September 9th, 2008 filed in About the Authors
My mother grew up in a working class neighborhood in west Baltimore. My father grew up dirt poor on a farm in southside Virginia. He was the first person in his family to go to college. I grew up in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, a place your typical eastern elite couldn’t identify when I was born, and which still gets confused with Charlotte despite having quadrupled or so in size since that time. I went to North Carolina State University on scholarship, and I’m still paying off my own student loans for graduate school
Like every other kid in a smallish city, I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license. Like many other kids, I drove my first car into the ground and my parents nuts in the process. Like many other kids, I was subjected to some serious lectures whenever a car full of kids from the next high school over got killed racing on some back road.
So look, I’m no eastern elite, and I know what it’s like out in real, red, car-dependent America. Spare me your lectures.
But you know what else? It’s absurd that I even feel the need to pull this all out to defend ideas that are entirely defensible on the merits. It’s absurd that anyone should be expected to take care when arguing about policy lest they offend the delicate sensibilities of ma and pa small town. I know those people, and they’re grown ups, and I believe they can handle the truth. When I’m talking to my dad about funding for rail, I don’t take care to make sure I’m not coming across as excessively elitist. I make my argument and he tells me what he thinks.
So if you think that a speed limit is a dumb idea, please say so, but spare me your line about how eastern elites don’t get real America. If I make an argument about the social costs of excessive driving and you read into that some elitist disdain for the lives of “real” people, grow up. I’m so sick of this idea that one has to earn the right to make legitimate arguments by having some kind of authentic American life.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I agree. I don’t think that you (or Ezra) are being elitist.
I think the speed-regulator thing is a dumb idea.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Fair enough.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Not sure if the parent thing is directed at me, I’ll just note that as far as I know, my dad only read one book in his life. I described my relationship honestly. I’m glad your relationship is different, but it’s not my experience. Not sure how the fact that your relationship is different - a dad who actually went to college and probably feels able to defend himself, but I really don’t know - not sure how that says much about my experience. My dad had dyslexia as a kid, he refuses to write anything down becasue he can’t spell simple words like “money:, he won’t even email. But he’s proud, and he’s plenty smart, and he bristles when people don’t treat him with respect.
And if it was directed at me, I urge you to read my post a bit more carefully because the characterization above is not what I was trying to say.
Last time I was home, an uncle who grew up in the gold country and now lives in Sacramento had just lost his job due to environmental regulations concerning the kinds of engines he was selling (my brother is in the same business, sells engines for pto basically). He didn’t understand it, as far as he could tell some scientist in Washington had just ruined his life.
He didn’t feel part of the process, that’s the big point, he didn’t feel represented, one day it just happened. This was a command from on high, and from his perception it was a bunch of elites telling him how to live and he didn’t like it at all. Republicans have exploited that.
He loves the outdoors and would be a strict environmentalist, but he has to be part of the process. He doesn’t feel like anyone is representing his interests, or asking him how to solve these problems (not directly, but the feeling of being represented). I know that his interests were being represented, along with everyone else, but that is not how he sees it.
Until Democrats learn to empower these groups, to make them feel like they have a voice at the table (as Clinton surely did), they will struggle with this group. This isn’t about better or worse lifestyles, it’s plain and simply not feeling as though the party is aware of and representing those interests. That’s what I think, and it doesn’t have to be that way. But things have to change, and part of it is listening rather than getting pissed when people are trying to speak out – however imperfectly – on the issue.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
Not at all directed at your thoughtful post, Mark. I’m just frustrated by recent responses to posts suggesting that my arguments aren’t wrong on the merits, but are rather invalid based on assumptions about the nature of my life and preferences.
I’d just heard one too many counter-arguments that began, “well, the author must have never lived outside of a city if he thinks that…”
September 10th, 2008 at 12:18 am
As a politically conservative transit advocate with no party affiliation (and who also happens to be a Federal employee), I’m actually very pleased to see you protest the notion that “one has to earn the right to make legitimate arguments”. I stand on the sidelines and watch these lame arguments whiz by all day.
That, of course, works both ways. But for the sake of this website, I wholeheartedly support your sentiment.
September 10th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Get off the main highway system and stray an hour or so outside of any major city in the western US, excepting only the west coast, and you can literally drive past fifty miles of nothing: no post office, no landmarks, and in the extensive high plains areas, often no trees or rolling farmland. Sometimes there are and no signs of life at all other than the rickety power lines here and there and a lone vehicle from the opposite direction every five or fifteen minutes.
Even people who live here don’t always appreciate the vast emptiness of it, the impractical hurdles to most forms of mass transit, or the time required to get from A to B, if they have spent all their life in the denser urban and suburban areas. Those looking from afar, even less so. That’s when they start proposing ridiculous and fundamentally meritless garbage like speed governors on cars, or claiming that growing up in suburban Raleigh has prepared them to understand commuter needs on the other side of the Mississippi. That’s not possible, and the solutions proposed on the basis of that experience are often an ill fit out this direction.
In any case, the chap writing in the NYT oped is flatly out of his depth. He doesn’t understand that ’speed’ is being cited as a differential factor in fatal accidents, not a fixed reference, nor does he realize that his proposal is matronizing foolishness that makes it clear how out of touch and elite he actually is. That you rushed to defend him from his critics on this point tars you with the same brush, and not unfairly.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:44 am
I don’t think speed limiters on cars is “a dumb idea.” I think it’s a great idea in theory that falls apart in the application. Kinda like gun control or campaign finance reform or charcoal-activated underwear to “cure” flatulence.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:49 am
When I first read this post, I was so shocked that I spilled my mocha-latte all over my pile of diplomas from expensive Eastern universities and Mayflower Quarterlies. I quickly shined the Eastern Elite signal against the clouds last night (it’s the shape of a gin and tonic) and rushed to synch all my Apple products to alert me to respond this morning, after reading the New York Times (of course).
My working class roots go very deep, as in, you’ve got to get deep in my lineage before you’ll find any. (We think Ezekial Bumpowder might have been born a serf in upper-Westphalia, but he was always pretty mum about it. Once he made his name at Agincourt, he never picked up a shovel again.)
So Ryan, I mingle with The Elite, I Know the Elite, the Elite is a friend of mine. Ryan, you’re no the Elite.
Now would someone please freshen up this Harvey Wallbanger?
September 10th, 2008 at 10:35 am
As the saying goes “Speed Kills”. The point of the article was merely a suggestion to limit cars to the top speeds allowed by law. Not sure how that is elitist.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Dave: Elitism is the belief that you know better than others how they ought to be restricted in their rights, based on a provincial understanding of their needs that arises from having been isolated or privileged beyond a true sharing their experiences.
The law is subject to immediate change based on the needs or whims of the electorate, while Orwellian hardware controls are not (or if they are, then they are easily defeated and have no effect on those most likely to cause trouble). Moreover, the speed limits are not uniform across the states, while the laws of interstate commerce ensure that a car legally sold in one state can be transferred to another at will, even if it did not meet the specific requirements of that state’s laws at the original time of sale.
Second, speed limits only apply on public roads. If you want to take your car drag racing or rally racing over the weekend on private property, or public property for which an appropriate permit has been sought and granted and public access has been restricted, that is entirely within your rights.
Third, speed doesn’t kill. Uncontrolled stopping is what kills. Moreover, while accidents do increasingly become fatal at higher speeds because the uncontrolled stop is more severe in its effects, there are correspondingly fewer of them. Higher velocity has the interesting effect of increasing attentiveness, which reduces the propensity for accidents.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:25 am
monkeyerotica — Here’s the set of fatal accidents speed governors are supposed to address: Fatal accidents in which the vehicle had an initial speed of 85 mph that would not have occurred had the vehicle had an initial speed of 75 mph. I’m confident that number is less than the annual variation in fatal accidents. It’s impossible to determine how many without doing a full-blown accident reconstruction for each accident, but there are only a few hundred fatalities per year at a posted speed limit of 75 mph.
85 mph vs. 75 mph doesn’t make much difference. It takes a minimum of half a second for the average person to react to a sudden event. If reaction time is the concern, someone going 82 mph will have to start his reaction 50 milliseconds earlier than someone driving at 75 mph. 50 ms is not much.
Even if a governor would make an appreciable difference, here are some of the benefits of not having a governor:
1. Temporarily speeding up to pass an 18 wheeler on a highway.
2. Temporarily speeding up to lose a tail-gater.
3. Temporarily speeding up to pass a car safely on a 2-lane highway.
4. Rushing someone to the hospital.
5. Driving 80-85 mph on highways that are designed for that speed and conditions permit. (Speeding tickets aren’t intended to discourage all speeding.)
These admittedly small benefits add up over billions of vehicle trips per year, or trillions of vehicle miles per year. This would never pass a cost-benefit analysis at NHTSA.
PS. FWIW, I’ve represented auto makers in products cases on and off for 16 years. One of my jobs is to work with ex-NHTSA statisticians, and to depose opposing statisticians.
September 10th, 2008 at 11:41 am
If I recall correctly, this debate began by noting that car speedometers often go up to 140.
So tell us, anym_avey, oh sage of the Great West, do those farmers in the empty quarter ever go 140?
For the record, I know the answer. My roots begin in southeastern Colorado, which is as empty as any place in the lower 48.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
It’s sad that this conversation is happening during the recent flare-up of the culture war, as it conflates “Eastern” and “elite”. You really shouldn’t have your position smeared with nonsense about brie and lattes. Your geography, on the other hand, has shaped your experience in ways that are highly relevant.
Those of us who lived (and drove) west of the Mississippi under the nationwide 55MPH limit have that experience to draw from whenever proposals like this are discussed. Living in rural/exurban Texas, there was no more universally reviled law than that speed limit. The cranks ranting about Easterners ‘not getting it’ may have been incorrect, but it was impossible to feel like 55MPH had been imposed by people with any insight into our own experience. If you spent 45 minutes driving 62 MPH down a perfectly straight, near-empty road, while watching out for speed traps, you’d also be flabbergasted that this was what the lawmakers intended.
So when you argue that you understand the costs of lower speed limits, your geography really does become relevant — at least if you’re going to convince any Westerners.
Red/blue cultural caricatures shouldn’t play into this either, as there are some deeply red areas in the East with twisty, crowded roads. I have spent a lot of time driving around Southside VA and the RDU area, and grew up driving in rural/exurban Texas. Driving on NC-86 or VA-40 is simply not equivalent to driving TX-73, even if you’re behind trucks with Confederate flag stickers on all of them.
September 10th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
If I recall correctly, this debate began by noting that car speedometers often go up to 140.
And how many of those cars are actually capable of reaching that speed? Most of the time, that’s just marketing. I think I remember mid-90’s Toyota Corollas having spedometers that went up to 135, and the only way they’d get up to that speed is if they were falling off of something very tall.
My question is: why bother with intrusive digital solutions (GPS, satellites, servers, etc) when we could just tax gasoline and diesel until it’s $10/gal (perhaps less for commercial applications)? Either you’ll see people slowing their big vehicles down, or you’ll see a lot more people on 350cc motorcycles. Either way, F = ma, seems like that would handle it?
September 10th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
More people on 350cc motorcycles = more dead people.
September 10th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“Moreover, while accidents do increasingly become fatal at higher speeds because the uncontrolled stop is more severe in its effects, there are correspondingly fewer of them.”
This is incorrect. The 2005 release of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publication Traffic Safety Facts states that 51% of fatal crashes occurred in speed zones of 55 mph or more, but only 7% of fatal crashes were in urban speed zones of 30 mph or less.
Furthermore (and related to this discussion of rural speed limits), a largely disproportionate percentage of fatalities occur in rural areas. Fifty-four percent of fatal crashes occurred in rural areas, while less than 21% of U.S. population lives in rural areas.
September 10th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
More people on 350cc motorcycles = more dead people.
Prove it.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
My question is: why bother with intrusive digital solutions (GPS, satellites, servers, etc) when we could just tax gasoline and diesel until it’s $10/gal (perhaps less for commercial applications)?
Is this the same diesel that’s used to transport those already expensive foodstuffs to the grocery store?
Hey, if you’re cool with your food bill quadrupling, rock on with your bad self.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Fifty-four percent of fatal crashes occurred in rural areas, while less than 21% of U.S. population lives in rural areas.
Please define “rural.” It’s one of those things like “middle class” where everyone has their own definition.
See, what I watch is “erotica” and what YOU watch is “godawful porn.”
September 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I normally don’t take homework assignments from someone who can’t be bothered to spend 1 minute on Google to find the same info. But here you go:
2006 occupant fatality rate per 100K vehicles:
motorcycles: 71.94
passenger cars: 13.01
2006 occupant fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled:
motorcycles: 38.79
passenger cars: 1.10.
You can read the date yourself. go to
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/cats/listpublications.aspx?Id=17&ShowBy=Category,
then go to the 2006 motorcycle traffic safety fact sheet
it’s on page 3
September 10th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I normally don’t take homework assignments from blah blah blah
Good natured ribbing! Jocularity! Excellent!
But 51% of those fatalities involved another vehicle, might that chance if there were less very large vehicles on the road, and if speeds were brought down by the higher cost of running that large vehicle at high speed?
And don’t recent studies showing that more cyclists and pedestrians on the road actually make pedestrians and cyclists safer indicate that there’s at least the possibility that more motorcycles on the road might decrease the number of accidents for motorcycles?
And lastly, since I see lots and lots of race rockets all over town, and not so many small-displacement bikes, I’m curious what those breakdowns are. Anecdotally, I know that the kids I ran with in high school that got into Honda Passports and Vespas seemed to fare okay, certainly much more often than those whose parents were dumb enough to buy their kids racing bikes. But anecdotes aren’t data, so I went looking through those stats to find out what the breakdown was for fatalities by engine displacement. I saw stats for: two-vehicle vs. one-vehicle crases, alcohol, speeding and helmets, but nothing for motorcycle type or engine displacement. Could you direct me to that part?
Thanks!
September 10th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
But 51% of those fatalities involved another vehicle, might that chance if there were less very large vehicles on the road, and if speeds were brought down by the higher cost of running that large vehicle at high speed?
Apologies, my dependence on comment previews has made me weak. That should read:
But 51% of those fatalities involved another vehicle, might that change if there were less very large vehicles on the road, and if speeds were brought down by the higher cost of running large vehicles at high speed?
Again, apologies, I regret the mistake.
September 10th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Chiggins:
I imagine the fatality rate for motorcyclists would decline some if most vehicles on the road were motorcycles. When a 4,000 pound car and 1,000 pound motorcycle (including rider) collide, the motorcycle always loses.
But I’m sure the fatality rate would still be far higher for motorcyclists, simply because they don’t sit inside a 4,000 pound cushioned cocoon. If everyone drove motorcycles, we’d still have many, many more deaths. (That might not be the case with bicycles, which have a relatively low top speed.)
NHTSA tracks all data reported in standard accident reports. Its fatal accident reporting system (FARS) database has even more detailed data. It takes some digging to find some of the more obscure stats, though, and I’d have to do some research to find the right data sets.
September 10th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
anm avey - thank you for the eloquent definition of elitism. I make no claim to being an experts on elitism or those disaffected by it.
While stationed in West Texas early in my Army enlistment, I had to make the incredibly boring drive from Dallas to San Angelo on a very flat, very straight two lane road. On the four hour trip, I passed two cars going the other direction. I could see probably 10 miles ahead. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t going 85 pretty much the whole way on the 40 mph road.
I don’t take an issue with convenient speeding,especially when roads are over-engineered to facilitate such driving. I do take issue with the fact that after 75 mph, the fuel economy in many cars starts to plummet drastically. I see speed caps as a measure to reduce fuel usage, not a way to inconvenience our rural neighbors.
Nor do I think speed caps should be at 75 mph. perhaps a little higher would be appropriate. They should not exist on emergency vehicles. Cars without them need not be retrofitted with artificial caps that potentially change the performance of the engine. But many classes of automobile simply do not need the capability to drive 100 mph, and there’s no need for them to be engineered in such a way.
September 10th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
The FARS db is excellent, thanks much for introducing me to that.
I had to find another couple reports to get any kind of figures, but all they show is that currently motorcycles under 500cc’s have made up 6-7% of fatalities since about 1999, and also that the biggest increase has been in riders between 40-60, in engine displacements from 1000-1500cc’s, that over half involve cars, that over half aren’t wearing helmets and that about a 1/3 involve booze.
Given that the marketshare of small displacement bikes is probably not very large, that probably doesn’t indicate much. I imagine single-vehicle fatalities (especially involving booze) would go up for bikes, and there’s a good chance they’d even go up by more than the 44-ish thousand car and truck fatalities we have a year now. But I’m also speculating that taking a bunch of large vehicles off the road, decreased engine displacements, subsequently lower speeds would bring those per-million-miles figures down. Helmet laws would bring them down more, but that’s a question of liberty/risk/democracy that’s touchy everywhere.
I have to admit, I think I made a mistake by challenging on the premise that it wouldn’t create more dead people, and perhaps should have staked on how many deaths is acceptable, and is it possible to get there without using 4k pound vehicles? Or better still: you make “more dead people” sound like a bad thing. But thanks again for the RTFM, learned something today, and that’s never bad.
Monkeyrotica sir, yes I think container trucking for those last few miles from freight train hubs would fall under the commercial applications I was referring to. California agricultural producers pay far less for an acre-foot of water than residential customers pay, I was thinking along those lines, though not as great a disparity in price.