Driving in Berkeley

By Annie Selak

There is one thing that prevents me from absolutely loving being a resident of the City of Berkeley: driving.

Every time that I am in my car, I cannot believe the sites I see from my fellow drivers. Without a doubt, the worst drivers in the country reside in Berkeley. Yes, even worse that New York where the taxi drivers are notorious for being rude or Detroit where standard traffic laws (lanes, red lights, etc) don’t apply.

The reason drivers in Berkeley are so horrendous are three-fold:

1) They are oblivious. Seriously. It’s as though everyone thinks they are the only car on the road. Clearly no one was taught about “defensive driving” in drivers ed or even “offensive driving,” for the 2 of those presumes that your actions while driving affects other drivers.

2) The conditions don’t help anyone out. The area of Berkeley I live in, known as “Holy Hill” has only 3 ways to leave the hill. So the traffic is horrendous. Team this up with thousands of Cal students ignoring pedestrian laws and throw in a few hundred bikers and the result isn’t all that surprising.

3) I said so.

Since this is clearly a sound argument, as my colleague Kevin Ressler sarcastically points out, my question is this: What is the nonviolent response to driving in Berkeley. Is yelling and screaming at my fellow drivers nonviolent?

To be sure, I rarely scream (though yelling is a more common occurrence). I cannot deny the fact that I often wish to hit other cars to teach them a lesson (another one of the 5000098827 reasons to drive a Saturn: they are dent resistant).

All joking aside, I have often heard it said among people in peace organizations that driving is their “outlet.” When they are behind the wheel, they are free to scream and yell and do whatever else they feel they should do. Is this, in fact, compatible with a life of nonviolence? Is it doing harm to others? Well, if we have our windows up and they can’t hear us yell, probably not. But surely it is doing harm to ourselves.

And isn’t that violent?