Proactivity

It has been said that most of our laws, limitations, ordinances, and the like have been written in blood and for good reason. It seems that blood must be spilled in some way before our representatives react and install provisions to prevent further bloodshed. The key word in the previous sentence is “react” because it infers a process of inaction until such time when exterior forces mandate a change from the status quo.

My question is this: why must these powers-that-be sit idly by until some poor bastard dies before they initiate changes to what could have well been a foreseen problem? Why can’t they be a little more proactive and a little less reactive?

Last week’s mid-air collision over the Hudson River is only the latest example of unending scenarios that may well have been dealt with before tragedy struck. Much is being said that this is the first such mid-air in decades within that airspace, but my question concerns the number of near misses (or, as George Carlin called them: near hits) within the same time span. If that number is high, why delay a change in procedures until someone pays the ultimate price? The key, I’d say, to effective leadership in the public safety arena is to analyze the near disasters rather than the body counts arising from the real things.

We all know of intersections that pose a danger for one or more reasons and we all know that our local leaders are loathe to install stop signs or traffic lights or other mitigating efforts until a given number of accidents and/or fatalities occur. Hell, you and I can do that! We don’t need some high priced bureaucrat to lock the barn door after our horse has run off, do we?

Regardless, this seems to be the current method of protecting society from pitfalls. Now, those that are opposed to such proactive intervention will cry that nothing bad has happened so why screw with it. “It must be working because no one has died”, they claim. At the other end of the spectrum is the Chicken Little sect that sees potential harm in any activity. In between is where all those public servants sit to separate the wheat from the chaff. And therein lies the rub: they opt for no action until they can no longer deny the irrefutable evidence of a problem, generally in the form of casualties. Reactivity, in other words.

These are the very same folks tasked with ensuring the public’s relative safety. Granted, we take a risk getting out of bed every morning and sometimes bad things happen. For these events to be legislated is ridiculous, but no more so than allowing obvious “accidents waiting to happen” to continue unabated until the accident does, indeed, happen. Likewise foolish is the attempt to protect society against itself when products are used in ways unintended by the manufacturer. We can try to make things foolproof, but “damn-foolproof” is elusive, if not impossible.

How many deaths by drunk drivers need to occur before some sort of sobriety/ignition interface is included in automobiles? How many must perish in the transportation system at the hands of fatigued operators before realistic rest provisions are enacted? What is the allowable death rate at intersections infamous for their invitation to collision before adequate safeguards are installed? Whatever the number, rest assured that our friendly representatives would rather choose inaction over defending their actions from accusations of needless meddling. This abstract fear of government intervention is about as much a knee-jerk reaction as after-the-fact zeal to correct long-known deficiencies in many facets of our daily lives. Or, worse yet, seeking a legislative cure for nothing more than an accident within a reasonably safe environment.

There is a line between the two extremes of doing nothing and doing everything and our elected representatives must be proactive in this regard if they are to lay claim to any justification for their lofty positions and salaries. Otherwise, let’s let ‘em all go back to the private sector. As I said earlier: we can be just as efficient reactionaries as they and just think of the money we’ll save.