Highway Blues

Thirty-nine million Americans were expected to drive 50 or more miles from home this Fourth of July holiday weekend, according to the American Automobile Association. Millions more were set to hit the road in Canada for the Canada Day holiday weekend.

So that there might be some measure of safety on the highway - achieved partly by holding down drunken driving - many state, provincial and local law enforcement agencies set up traffic roadblocks. Police check drivers' identities and see whether they have been drinking alcohol. This helps reduce the historically high number of traffic fatalities - nearly 34,000 in the United States in 2009, of which about one-third involved drunken drivers. So, this would seem to be a good thing, no?

So one might think. But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. A Wisconsin-based group called the National Motorists Association complains that the U.S. government pressured Apple and Research in Motion to ban apps showing where roadblocks are set up, bragging that their organization has forged boldly ahead and continues to list these locations on its Web site, so that drivers can avoid them.

The organization links its position to the whole idea of political independence, which its executive director explains thusly:

"This type of harassment seems ironic, given the onset of the Fourth of July holiday, a natonal celebration of our country's independence and enshrinement of individual freedoms. I don't think that being grilled by armed strangers, or having your personal effects scrutinized and searched by government personnel under the presumption of guilt rather than innocence is quite what the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind in 1776.''

Doing 80 miles an hour in a motor vehicle may not have entered into the Founders' thinking either. And "armed strangers''? That's one way of describing law enforcement.

Personally, as a survivor of a traffic accident two years ago brought on by an intoxicated 20-year-old - who was speeding and driving drunk at 5 o'clock in the afternoon - I am grateful that law enforcement is on the job and trying to reduce highway mayhem. Fortunately, I survived this sudden and frightening crash, as did my wife, who was at the wheel and driving responsibly. The medics who promptly arrived on the scene put my wife on a gurney and into an ambulance and drove her to a hospital for observation. She emerged without serious injuries and was released that same night. The drunk driver was arrested - those darned armed strangers again! - and ended up paying us a small amount of money for damaging our car, which spun out after we were clipped from behind at speed.

When I read rants like the one I quoted above, I don't think of powdered wigs, quill pens and 1776. I think of my wife in an ambulance, an IV hooked to her arm and me on the phone to her grown daughter telling a shaken woman that her mother was hit by a drunk driver and is in the hospital. As for enjoying the "enshrinement of individual freedoms,'' you have to be alive for that. Ironic, isn't it?

Independence Day

When my English-born wife was growing up in London, she liked to look at the map of the world in her schoolroom. She was particuarly fond of gazing at the nations tinted pink on the map, signifying that they were part of the British Empire.

One big swath of territory that was not pink was, of course, the United States, which began a painful separation from England and its King in 1776 and completed it nearly a decade later by force of arms. This once-wrenching departure has long since become a subject of good-natured joking between Yanks and Brits, including my wife and I. Two hundred thirty-four years is a long time to nurse a serious grudge.

"You were spoiled brats,'' she told me this morning, with a glint in her eye. "Still are.''

"Yes, and now there are 320 million of us,'' I said.

Things have gone pretty well in the post-pink era between the U.K. and the U.S. Oh, there was the unpleasantness of 1812, when the British Army occupied Washington, D.C. and burned the White House. Talk about sour grapes. But matters haven't been so bad since then, as the Empire has softened into the Commonwealth and America grew up in fits and starts to become great.

The Englishwoman who became my wife arrived on these shores at age 19 the same way so many others did before her: by ship, after a stormy crossing of the Atlantic to New York harbor, in February. She is a whole-hearted traveler who has visited many places I haven't, and may have traveled more miles for pleasure and business than I have. We two didn't meet on the road but we could have, so intrepid a globetrotter is she. She is also one of the few people outside the travel biz who understands that travel writing is a job, not a hobby or a holiday, though its fascinations are many. We have traveled together to far-flung places - Hong Kong, Argentina, Japan, Uruguay, Chile - to nearby places - Canada and around the U.S. - and, of course, back to the U.K.

I think this July 4 - or 4 July, as the British would write it - we'll tune out those stressful times of 1776 and 1812, and the bombs bursting in air. We'll grill some burgers out back and drink some wine. We'll be grateful that the only explosiveness between our two countries in the post-pink era are Independence Day fireworks in the night sky.

Driven Crazy

With the summer driving season upon us, the American Automobile Association predicts motorists in the United States will jump-start high summer by taking to the highways by the millions on the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. In fact, the AAA (http://www.aaa.com)/ expects cheap gas and the desire to avoid the hassles and rising prices of modes of transport such as flying will prompt a whopping 17.1 percent increase in domestic driving over last year's Independence Day holiday.

All the more reason to drive carefully, yes? Speaking as one who feels lucky to have walked away from an accident two years ago when my wife and I were rear-ended by a drunk, speeding 20-year-old, this sounds abundantly obvious.

Yet, this morning's inbox contains a press release touting the results of a study commissioned by an organization called the National Motorists Association (http://www.motorists.org/), advising drivers which of the 50 U.S. states are most likely to ticket drivers. The assumption behind the release is that the tickets are unjust. Indeed, the release states the organization "has been helping drivers fight their traffic tickets for over 25 years.''

But as I can attest, not all traffic tickets are unjust; I'll bet you can verify that fact, too. The organization in question doesn't have any way of establishing whether its "fighting'' on behalf of innocents or scofflaws. Moreover, 'traffic ticket' is a broad term, covering a wide range of charges, such as DUI, speeding, running redlights and ignoring stop signs, as well as non-moving violations such as illegal parking. Are all traffic tickets created equal? I don't think so.

Intrigued if puzzled, I read on. Florida is the state most likely to ticket, I was informed, followed by Georgia and Nevada, which finished in a dead heat, so to speak, for second place. The state least likely to ticket? Montana. Wyoming and North and South Dakota are slow to hand out citations, too, according to the study.

All very interesting. But useful? What are motorists to do with this information? Not drive in the states that pull people over? Lead-foot it over to the states that don't?

"Nothing can ruin a vacation more quickly than an undeserved traffic ticket,'' the press release claims. Actually, something can: A traffic accident, whether it's your fault or not. A fatal traffic accident could end your vacation.

Maybe instead of keeping an eye peeled for cops, drivers should just slow down, look before changing lanes, use those ever-less-employed turn signals more often, exhale and enjoy the ride. The accident rate - not just the rate of ticketing - would go down.

It's summertime and the living is easy. Let's take it easy and live.