Whatizitman
Poster Extraordinaire
The automobile has always been about making transportation easier, faster, etc… And more recently, safer.
All fine and dandy, of course.
One impact of that is the normalization of travel in extreme weather. Travel advisories are good and all. But if people are still venturing out, most notably for work/commuting, then accidents and shutdowns will occur. Mother Nature will win out eventually.
But perhaps more importantly, it’s normalized, and even expected, for workers to put themselves and others in danger to get to work. Other side effects include expecting workers to cover for other workers that are absent due to inclement weather. Someone still “has” to make it in, or the work doesn’t get done. This pits employees against each other.
Of course, teleworking can alleviate this somewhat. But not everyone can WFH. And too often those who can’t get stuck with extra work that remote workers are unable to do remotely.
Increasingly, vehicles are designed and marketed as Swiss-army sport-hauler-all-terrain-weather super truckcars. No doubt that has an impact on modern drivers’ expectations of their vehicles capabilities. I imagine the huge traffic tie-ups in recent news were not reflective of the inability of vehicles to handle the elements. On the contrary. Maybe less drivers should have been on the road in the first place. It was reported that some workers had to use PTO for sitting in traffic while commuting to work. Let that sink in. Did the Subarus and 4x4 trucks help those workers?
That’s to say nothing of the skyrocketing costs of newer vehicles reinforcing the need to work to pay for them.
At what point is it all too much? At what point do we all agree that maybe people shouldn’t be out driving in bad weather? Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
All fine and dandy, of course.
One impact of that is the normalization of travel in extreme weather. Travel advisories are good and all. But if people are still venturing out, most notably for work/commuting, then accidents and shutdowns will occur. Mother Nature will win out eventually.
But perhaps more importantly, it’s normalized, and even expected, for workers to put themselves and others in danger to get to work. Other side effects include expecting workers to cover for other workers that are absent due to inclement weather. Someone still “has” to make it in, or the work doesn’t get done. This pits employees against each other.
Of course, teleworking can alleviate this somewhat. But not everyone can WFH. And too often those who can’t get stuck with extra work that remote workers are unable to do remotely.
Increasingly, vehicles are designed and marketed as Swiss-army sport-hauler-all-terrain-weather super truckcars. No doubt that has an impact on modern drivers’ expectations of their vehicles capabilities. I imagine the huge traffic tie-ups in recent news were not reflective of the inability of vehicles to handle the elements. On the contrary. Maybe less drivers should have been on the road in the first place. It was reported that some workers had to use PTO for sitting in traffic while commuting to work. Let that sink in. Did the Subarus and 4x4 trucks help those workers?
That’s to say nothing of the skyrocketing costs of newer vehicles reinforcing the need to work to pay for them.
At what point is it all too much? At what point do we all agree that maybe people shouldn’t be out driving in bad weather? Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
