The death of this 7-year-old girl after being hit by a driver shocks us all. Since then, commentators have scrambled to demand simple, often simplistic, and immediate action on a complex problem. Invited to TV news 6pm, Valérie Plante was having a hard time reasoning with an enthusiastic Patrice Roy who wanted to see public works install speed bumps the next day. The mayor tried in vain to explain to him that the problem is not so much speed as the ever-increasing number of vehicles in the city and the bad behavior of motorists. It must be recognized that calls for appeasement and benevolence on the road are annihilated by messages that aggravate the problem. Year after year, the SAAQ invests approximately $6 million in its awareness campaigns. For their part, automakers spend $500 million a year, in Quebec alone, to perpetuate the self-centered model of cities where people can move freely and quickly, unhindered, human or otherwise, and where the attitude towards their fellow man boils down to “vroom, vroom” or “calm down, uncle”. A third of the ads we are repeatedly bombarded with by the media are about the automobile, where convoluted lyrics advocate individualism, gigantism, speed and total domination. Pedestrians and cyclists have no place in this fantasy world. The purpose of marketing is not to achieve the common good, but simply to sell the product to whoever pays for it. Without regulation, good feelings rarely have the capacity to challenge the financial means of those who work to keep us on our march to a better world. Anything goes, without morality or restraint, you have to sell. It is time to attack this aspect of the problem, one of the causes of the road massacre.
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