I’ve never been one to focus on good news when there is plenty of bad to go around, and at the moment we have enough bad news to make pessimists absolutely gleeful. But I suspect that we may be experiencing some good consequences in this cesspool of badness.
And if you don’t know what cesspool I’m talking about, please tell me how you accomplish that. There are the wars, of course, and fuel and failed mortgages and lost jobs and depleted retirement funds — all enough to set off every personal alarm I have. I haven’t felt this bad about our national situation since I was a kid and that evil man from the Soviet Union said he wanted to bury me, even though I’d never done anything to him.
One of the more obvious bonuses among the good things is that fewer people are dying in auto accidents. Every 10 percent increase in gas prices causes a 2.3 percent decline in auto deaths, according to a study by scientists at Harvard and the University of Alabama. And the difference is even better for drivers ages 15 to 17; deaths fall by 6 percent. What’s more, the researchers developed this formula back when gas was about $2.50 a gallon. I suspect that more people are parking their cars now and riding horses or something than during this study.
Of course, these same guys didn’t study bicycle and pedestrian deaths, which would figure to rise when gas prices go up, because more people would be riding bikes and walking. We’ll have to see. But I digress; back to the good stuff.
It will take a year or so before what’s happening now will show up in someone’s study, but junior scientist here thinks he sees other good things happening.
For one thing, fewer cars were jamming U.S. Highway 12 in the area from Lake Zurich to Lake-Cook Road. That’s just one example. From my Metra car every day, I’m seeing fewer smog producers on the road.
Then one recent Sunday, more than any time I can remember since I was a boy, I saw people out enjoying their neighborhoods, smiles on their faces. The kids were absolutely rapturous, and they were playing outdoors, without electronics! Neighbors were talking in pleasant knots. People were sitting on porch swings. Birds, of course, were singing.
My suspicion is that more people are stuck at home. And that, if they give it a chance, they’ll find that it can be a wonderful place.
Granted, it probably was the best weather of the year, but we’ve had many other great weekends when I was awed at barren neighborhood streets, with no bicycle or foot traffic, no smiles.
It just might be that bad economic times can be good for the soul, good for the family, good for people in general. The best times I can remember from my youth were low tech, sometimes with just a kitchen table, my widowed dad, my siblings and conversation.
More Top Picks Best Wide Width Shoes For Standing All Day
We got the greatest mileage out of just being together. It didn’t cost a thing.
———-
Send Guy Page comments, questions or suggestions to [email protected]