Stop signs raise point to ponder

Dear Mahatma: The whole discussion around vaccine and mask mandates being unconstitutional has made me wonder. Are stop signs unconstitutional? Don’t they unfairly restrict our liberty? What would Mahatma say?

— A Simple Pediatrician

Our understanding of traffic history is that when cars started to get around, cluttering up the streets and scaring the horses, state and city governments figured there should be some kind of rules and regulations.

Because cars back then were dangerous. And still are.

This question has now set us to thinking. We are fixin’ to either ruminate, pontificate or bloviate. Maybe all three.

Let’s start by going back in time, to ancient Rome.

Carts so cluttered up the roads of Rome that it was decreed they could not use the streets during the day. Naturally, this led to increased traffic at night, so much that residents complained the noise kept them awake.

We learn this from Tom Vanderbilt’s classic book on traffic, published in 2008 and a best-seller. It’s titled “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us).”

What this anecdote from Rome says about human beings is that the way traffic works would be similar to Newton’s Third Law of Motion. That is, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Keep Rome’s carts off the streets in the day; traffic madness ensues at night.

Consider also the Field of Dreams Law of Traffic: If you build or expand a highway, it will eventually become full up.

And there’s the Chicken and Congestion Law of Traffic: Which came first, the new or improved highway, or all the strip malls that line it?

A partial answer would be to examine the White Oak Crossing exit and onramp in Maumelle, a fairly new feature of Interstate 40. Undeveloped land near White Oak Crossing has magically turned into growing subdivisions.

When those homes fill up with people, and people fill their garages with motor vehicles, White Oak Crossing will become a busy place.

Back to Tom Vanderbilt. He writes that the first traffic lights used only red and green. Then amber, the warning color, came along. Some traffic engineers resisted, expecting there would be “amber rushing.”

Sound familiar? Sounds like what parents tell teenagers. Son, that yellow light does not mean … hit it!

It would be cool for A Simple Pediatrician to file a lawsuit contesting the constitutionality of traffic laws. Stop signs in particular. Assuming a lawyer could be found who would take the case.

Perhaps the question was tongue in cheek, or facetious, or meant to send a message about vaccine mandates. We aren’t smart enough to be wise about that topic, even though in our house everyone is vaccinated and boostered. Also the flu shot. We feel like pin cushions.

The Fabulous Babe took those shots like a man; we flinched and whined for ice cream.