LAGUNA COASTLINE NEWS

03/29/02

 

“Legislated Behavior”

  by Catharine Cooper

 

It happens in a moment.  A memory awakened by an event.  An olive pickup truck filled with teenagers sails past as I walk the streets into La Paz.  They are standing, holding onto the bed slats in the back of the truck.  The wind blows through their hair and they are laughing.

 

The memory:  I am fifteen.  My friends and I race toward Cotton’s Point in San Clemente chasing huge waves.  We stand together in the back of an old pickup truck surrounded by our surfboards.  The wind blows through our hair.  We are laughing.

 

The scene in La Paz, of course, could no longer be played out in California.  Without seat belts for each passenger (not to mention – seats), we would not be legal.  I know that ‘seat belts save lives.’ Certainly I have buckled in my share of children and chided my adult passengers into clicking shut the clasp.  But something in the simple scene, the laughter, brings me to a clearer realization of all that we give up when we proscribe behavior, making in some instances, innocence a crime.

 

As a child, I raced my tricycle and later, my small two-wheeler around my neighborhood streets, my brother and sister chasing along behind me.  No helmets weighed our heads or constricted the wind echoing through our ears.  We would toss our bikes to the ground and take off running in weed-covered empty lots, slither up tall trees, and collapse, exhausted, in a giggling heap.  Hard to do with a cumbersome helmet strapped to one’s small head. 

 

As an adult, I have come to cherish my protective head-gear as I contend with increasing traffic on shared highways.  But with the helmet laws in place, kids will never know that freedom.  Yes, they will be less injured.  Yes, a scrapped elbow and not a brain concussion.  But really, what are the odds on neighborhood streets? 

 

The motorcycle controversy raged at a fever pitch.  This exact same issue.  At its core, the freedom to choose personal safety, to make one’s own decision – a freedom now denied.

 

Instead of forcing legislative behavior, and making non-compliance a crime, why not change the game entirely?  Legislate restrictions on certain outcomes.  For example, if you are injured in an accident, and you are not wearing either a seat belt or a bike/motorcycle helmet, make it impossible to seek damages from another party.  Period.  End of story.  Disallow each and every attorney from arguing a case where non-compliance of suggested behavior takes place.  Return us to a state of choice, a state of freedom – such that our nation was built upon.

 

How many similar and simple freedoms have vanished under the aegis of making our lives ‘safer?’  These are not huge items, but each one takes its toll.

 

I used to be able to run with my sister’s dog on the beach, toss a ball into the waves and watch him enjoy a morning swim.  Before the tourists parked themselves for the day.  Leash laws have removed that event from the field of vision.  Ever try to play fetch with a dog on a leash?  Yes, we have a great ‘bark park,’ - but it isn’t the same.

 

We have a ‘wilderness park,’ with open and closed hours.  Forests with permits and sign-up sheets.  Does anyone remember hiking the hills in the deep of night, guided by the light of a full moon and the fragrance of damp shoreline sage?  Risk it now, and likely, you’ll be ticketed by the ranger force.  Yes, there are ‘guided’ evening hike.  So much for adventure.

 

We continue to give up little things without much notice.  It’s now nearly impossible to walk outside your home without a picture ID.  Purchases in stores, travel by any means - require one to constantly carry an identification document.  Normal citizens.  You and I.  Don’t leave home without your card.  You might forget who you are.

 

Sometimes life feels like a coloring book instead of a blank sheet of paper.  A series of pictures presented to paint inside the lines, instead of open space and wild conjuring.   It takes vigilance to hold and protect our freedoms.   The entire concept of self-determination was hard fought by our ancestors.  I’d hate to shame them by letting all of them go.