Changing A Community

About 18 months ago we moved from a good sized city (130,000) into a rural county.  One difference I’ve noticed is that there is a general disregard for traffic laws here.  A stop sign doesn’t mean the other person will stop.  In fact, the person driving up behind you as you approach a stop sign is likely to assume that you will not stop - which means that they just might rear-end you.  Speed limits are ignored.  No passing zones don’t have much meaning.  It seems that a culture of disregarding the law has developed.

After another blatant example today I started thinking about how that tendency might be changed.  It’s one thing to change  the thinking of one person, but how do you change the thinking of several thousand?  Increased traffic enforcement might have some impact, though it would probably be temporary.  Advertisements might cause a few to change their habits.  A tragic accident that claimed lives might impact even more (not something you could plan).  In the end I’m still left with my original question.  How can you change a culture?

The solution may be found deeper within each individual.  Why do they drive as they do?  Since this is a rural county and traffic is light, many may believe that stopping at a stop sign when no one else is around is simply foolish. There is no meaning to actually stopping other than just because “it’s the law.”  Drives aren’t measured in blocks, but in miles.  Speeding makes you feel like you’re covering all that ground a bit quicker.  Overall it seems that it is more meaningful, beneficial to break the law than it is to keep the law.  A long term solution would have to address meaning.  Observing the law would have to become more meaningful than not.  Whether it is “something we do” or “following the law makes a real difference” a framework has to develop that can provide meaning.