Red Lights & Memories

It seems to me that more and more drivers are running red lights, not even touching their brakes when the yellow tells them to stop. And there never seem to be any cops or sheriff’s deputies around to corral them. I had an idea driving home from the mall yesterday.  It involved a way to stop all the red-light runners.  My plan would require a little more technology than we probably now have, maybe a little too much money.  But, hey, if we caught just a portion of those who run lights it would pay for itself.  Depending on the posted speed limits at each light, the time for the yellow should be long enough for anyone driving at the top of the limit to come comfortably and safely to a stop once a yellow light comes on, thus preventing the legal argument that it would have been unsafe to brake to a stop when the yellow is spotted.  If they have to go through the yellow because they were too close to stop, they should have plenty of time to make it through on all yellow.  But if any part of their car is still in the “zone” when the red light comes on, they would be required to pay a fine.  The zone would be marked by a laser beam set to go on with the red light.  A video camera would also automatically go on at the same time to record the licenses of any who were still in the red zone.  And we wouldn’t need any police to enforce it. The first infraction within a one year period would cost $100, without recourse to the legal system.  The second infraction would double to $200, the third to $400, the fourth to $800, the fifth to $800 and a month in jail, the sixth to $1,000 and a year in jail.  After a year, the penalties would revert to step one.  I’ll bet it wouldn’t take very long before NO one was going through any red lights.

I dug out an old tape one of my nieces had made when she interviewed my mother on her 92^nd birthday.  How odd it was to see her again, hear her again after almost twenty years. Most of what she had to say was identical to what she’d told my brother thirteen years before this interview, almost like she’d memorized the testimony and was repeating it not necessarily as she remembered it or as it actually happened, but as she’d memorized it.  The mind and memory are funny creatures.  We can remember some things vividly, things that never happened, only manufactured in our subconscious desire to change what actually happened.  I hope that isn’t true of what I remember about my life (although I’m sure parts of what I’ve said in my memoires may be exaggerated or misinterpreted by me).  I watched the video, and it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be.  She was there as I remember her in her nineties, a little old woman still with a great sense of humor.  Her voice, her inflections, her gestures were exactly as I remembered them.  She was, for a little while, still alive.