So it seems the recent age-based restrictions on young drivers are due to lobbying by a father whose son died while driving drunk. Yeah.
This reminded me of a situation near my parents' house. There's a road there that is functionally a minor highway. It's a well-built, well-lit, 80 km/h four-lane divided road with no buildings along it or crossroads, it just serves to link two built-up areas. There's one place along this road where people tend to jaywalk as part of a convenient shortcut. Shortly after I moved away, they installed a pedestrian crossing there - you push a button, stoplights stop traffic, and you can cross. But then someone died from being hit by a car while jaywalking (opting not to use the crosswalk) so they slowed down the speed limit on that section of the road to either 60 or 40, I forget which. It's really weird to drive that slowly in that section. It's awkward and counterintuitive and confuses everyone. Even I, a non-driver who believe that pedestrian precedence over cars is an essential part of forward-looking urban planning, think this is overkill.
So I mentioned to my parents that I've jaywalked through there dozens of times, and I've always done so with the assumption that if I get hit by a car it's my problem. After all, I'm the one jaywalking across an 80 km/h road. I know it's a stupid thing to do, if I decide to do it and the natural consequences occur it serves me right, and it would really piss me off if my personal decision to do something stupid were used to inconvenience everyone else forever. My parents, who have also jaywalked across there dozens if not hundreds of times, agreed with me on this.
However, parents can be weird when it comes to their children's safety, and people can be weird in their grief. Therefore, I'd like to be able to put a legally-enforceable clause in my will saying that if I die while doing something that I know is stupid, I don't want my death to be used to make all kinds of new rules that are going to inconvenience people who are more sensible than me.
2 comments:
It's a great idea and would help in many situations.
It would have been very useful for several 9/11 families who knew their children would have not supported a war. There's a group called (something like) 9/11 Families For Peaceful Tomorrows that worked hard to say "not in our name".
I also remember a man who tried to tell the world that his daughter, who was murdered, would not have wanted vengeance in the form of capital punishment for her murderer.
That would be a cool application! It would get complicated though. If there's any one situation in which you wouldn't mind your death being used to make policy changes (for example, if my landlord installed crappy locks and that lead to my death, I wouldn't mind being used to get better locks required) you'd have to think of every possible situation in which you wouldn't want it used.
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