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Our Rush To Judgment Is A Collision With Reckless Blame

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 13, 2008

News of another fatal traffic crash involving area teens has spurred a new round of conversation and commentary regarding safety on the roads.

Again, people have been quick to point fingers, regardless of verifiable fact. Such rush to judgment typically begins the moment reports hit Internet news sites.

We live in a culture that owns a singular need to assign blame whenever anything happens that makes us uneasy.

"Who is responsible?" "What laws were broken?" "Whom can we pin this on?" "Who was negligent?" "Where were the parents?" "Why were they out after midnight?" "My children would never act like this."

If we're not satisfied quickly, we move on to fault the victims. "They must have been racing." "I'm sure someone was drinking." "The driver only had a learner's permit." "I'll bet they were trying to pull some stunt."

More often than not, the simple truth is that accidents happen. It could have been any one of us, irrespective of age. It could have been people we love; quite often it is.

Six years ago, my wife and I were awakened after midnight by a call from a sheriff's deputy. Our daughter, Naomi, had lost control of my car and crossed the median near the Wal-Mart where she worked. A sport utility vehicle traveling the opposite way demolished the fragile subcompact and we drove to Tampa General Hospital, unsure whether she was alive.

She recovered quickly. There had been no drugs, no drinking, no speeding, no phone, no reckless driving: It was an accident. Yet, a few weeks later, I spent one of the longest afternoons of my life across a conference table from no fewer than three lawyers trying their best to embellish liability beyond the price of repairs.

One woman asked my daughter directly: "I want you to tell me why you drove across the median and plowed into us that night."

As if she did it on a whim? As if such circumstances happen by design?

Recently, two Bloomingdale High School students died in a traffic crash. Two more young people were seriously hurt. Four families are struggling with pain and grief. No amount of blame will do anything to turn back the clock, and no additions to our long lists of rules will prevent something like this from happening again.

Reactive judgment, unfortunately, works like a charm: It destroys community. So do vindictiveness, blame, censure, unbridled criticism, condemnation and the vast majority of civil legal action. Reckless blame is divisive, it prolongs grief, it reopens wounds, it compounds suffering and builds walls between us.

There are better ways to heal.

Columnist Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul

@gmail.com.

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