Becca Robinson: An Often-Broken Social Contract

Becca Robinson reminds us that the safety of others is all of our responsibility when we are navigating the roads.

When you get behind the wheel of a car or set out as a pedestrian, you’re opting into a social contract shared by everyone you encounter along the way: You’ll obey the traffic signals and I will as well. I will stay focused and I ask you to do the same. In short, I won’t hurt you and you won’t hurt me.

This is a lot of trust to put into the people around you, a pact that is literally a matter of life and death, and yet, so many of us breezily get into our cars every day without considering this weighty agreement.

I’m here to out myself as a recently reformed lead-foot and phone-fiddler in the hope that I can make you think differently about the responsibility you have as a member of our community. I specify “recently reformed” because my remarkable friend Julia was struck by a car in a crosswalk in Berkeley in February, and she subsequently died from her injuries.

I grieve for myself, our friends, and her family, for the future we are all facing that is missing her smile, laugh, creativity, and endless well of empathy and caring. I grieve for the world that she had dedicated her life to changing for the better. And finally, I grieve for the driver who hit her, who now has to live with this for the rest of their days.

And what was it all for? Were they driving a bit faster than usual because they were running late? Did they let their frustration at something unrelated negatively impact the way they were driving? Were they responding to a text message? Or trying to get their directions to load? Or queuing up their favorite song?

I will probably never know the answer to these questions but one thing I am certain of is that none of those things are worth inflicting the searing pain of losing a loved one onto someone else. I beg you to consider what a human life is worth to you, and let that set the bar for the distractions you tolerate when you’re operating a vehicle.

Traffic violence is entirely preventable, as long as we collectively decide that it is a cause worthy of putting down our phones for.

With a Perspective, I’m Becca Robinson.

Becca is a software engineer for a precision agriculture startup that aims to make farming more sustainable. She lives in Oakland with her dog Zola.