Module 11 Personal Reflection: Lessons from the road

There have been a few studies over the years about intentional animal and vehicle collisions. One study in Brazil involved placing rubber snakes on the road, sometimes on the center stripe of the road and sometimes closer to the side of the road. Wherever their placement, a certain percentage of drivers would intentionally run their tires over the fake snakes. A research effort in Canada also studied wildlife road mortality. Using fake snakes and turtles, the investigators discovered that the decoys were run over intentionally in many cases. (One encouraging part of this study was the number of people who stopped to rescue the reptile decoys. Canadians really are the nicest people.) Our friends down under conducted a study with similar outcomes using fake snakes and frogs. Crikey! Not a g’day for the little fellows. (By the way, these studies often included a control object, such as a disposable cup, rubber hose, or a leaf, all of which typically had a higher survival rate.) Studies in locations throughout the Unites States have yielded similar results. We may just have a general road rage for reptiles. If one is anywhere near the road we seem to have an inclination to intentionally run over it.

One intriguing aspect of intentional roadkill is the motivation behind it. What is driving the driver to go out of the way to take out a being that is, in most cases, not even in the way? The scientific summary suggests that intentional road-killing of target species, such as snakes, is associated primarily with fear and contempt by the drivers. There’s the moving violation motivation: fear and contempt. Perhaps the motivation is not so surprising, but is it legitimate? 85% of the more than 3000 species of snakes worldwide are not dangerous to humans. I am sorry that I could not locate the data identifying what number of the 15% are able to successfully attack, disable, and destroy automotive vehicles roaring down the highway. And don’t get me started on why we should be especially fearful and contemptuous of turtles. There is a good reason why I can’t count the number of times they have startled me as they hustle across the highway with almost hypersonic speed.

Fear and contempt. The deadly duo of intentional road kill. Let’s leave the asphalt and see if we can see any of our fault as we recklessly travel on the road of life. I have a suspicion that these motivations are transferable to human interactions as we journey together. We speed along every day in our hectic, hurried lives. Sometimes we see others who are different from us and we perceive that difference as threatening to us, so we rev our engines and prepare to run them over. When we label a person or group of persons, whom we likely don’t even know, as fearful or contemptuous, the accelerator of our anxiety feels the pressure and we may find ourselves wounding them with words or other dangerous devices we have at our disposal.

Though an extreme situation, in August 2017, a peaceful group of people protesting against a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia were intentionally run over by a car, resulting in the death of a 32-year old legal assistant. I do not know what provoked the young driver to plow through the crowd and kill Heather Heyer, but I wonder if fear and contempt were passengers provoking him in the car that day.

Thankfully, I recall another traveler on the road. She was a different kind of road warrior who went by the name of Peace Pilgrim. From 1953 until 1981 she walked more than 25,000 miles proclaiming the power and priority of peace in our world. These are her words: “No one walks so safely as one who walks humbly and harmlessly with great love and great faith. For such a person gets through to the good in others (and there is good in everyone), and therefore cannot be harmed. This works between individuals, it works between groups and it would work between nations if nations had the courage to try it.”

Just recently, I saw another roadside interaction. Two men, one black and one white, were holding a sign that declared, “Love your neighbor who doesn’t look like you, think like you, love like you, speak like you, pray like you, or vote like you. Love your neighbor. No exceptions.” Fear and contempt lead to harm and heartache and sometimes death. Humility, acceptance, and peace lead to life. May love be the driving force as we travel on our journey. Love. No exceptions.