Real Name Policy by Zachary Urbina

     The fizzled panic over Carmageddon proves one thing about Los Angeles.  As much as we wept like infants imagining it, our city survived without cars. LA is blind to envisioning daily life without a car, and as such, reacts with extreme dismay over the prospect of even a few hours without one.  We anticipated the worst in Carmageddon.  Its name tripped some fugitive instinct that believed we would be punished for our century-long dependence on that infernal combustion. 

     The particular detail that struck this writer most notably during the weekend of 16-17 July, was when faced with the prospect of wildly unpredictable freeway activity Los Angelenos chose to just wait it out.       My braver friends who ventured onto the freeway system over that ominous-sounding two-day stretch reported with great delight, that the freeways were wide open, and aside from that closed stretch of the 405, traversable as ever.  They posted screenshots onto Facebook and Twitter of green-laned Internet maps, and camera phone shots of apocalyptically empty roads.

     We were scared tame, Los Angeles, one of those few moments that media hype proved remarkably beneficial.  We expected more from Carmageddon, something dreadful and purgatorial, the smoky abscesses of pre-hell, and it drastically underwhelmed.

      Recently, a friend of mine presented me a gift, a vanity license plate, containing my first initial and last name.  I had mentioned to her, months earlier, that my grandfather and my father, both native Angelenos had their own first initial-last name plates, and she decided to allow me to continue the ritual.  Some might balk at such a privacy-obliterating move, but I felt part of a tradition, even if it was a tradition of self-centered alpha males.

            However grateful I was for the lovely gift, I also found myself growing gradually, yet perceptibly, less likely to drive like jerk.  I slowly stopped jockeying for parking spaces, even refused to flip the oft-flown bird.  My bad behavior would be all too easy to pinpoint.  There, just above my bumper, was more/less my full name.  A few Googled keystrokes later, and I could be face to face with a person I vehicularly offended, should they choose to track me down.

            It dawned on me, what if everyone had their name on display?  What if our incentive to behave on the roads weren’t just a weekend of construction, but a lifetime of driving transparency?  Could we possibly act less like douche bags all the time?  Or is the idea of a cooperative metropolis too much, too soon for Los Angeles?

      Living in the car-centric culture affords Angelenos the freedom to widen our social radius significantly, despite our citywide hatred of traffic.  If you live in Santa Monica, you may occasionally venture Downtown for Artwalk.  Valley folk often head over the hill into Hollywood.  The daily distances covered during the course of an average SoCal citizen’s week can easily include one hundred roundtrip miles.  New York City, by contrast, which is to say the island of Manhattan, is little more that seven miles by three miles.  By mere totality of our metropolitan traipsing LA dwarfs New York, if only in geographic terms, makes it almost provincial.

     Los Angeles owes its growth to the automobile and along the way, developed some pretty rancid habits.  Road rage, be it a beeping horn, shaking fist, middle finger, or a full-blown across-multiples-panes-of-glass-replete-with-bits-of-spittle shouting match, is something all of us are reasonably guilty of, at one point or another.  This city regularly demonstrates a sense of perceived protection behind the wheels of our cars, knowing that unless things get truly violent, a little anger can boil over quickly, and then be promptly evaded with the change of a lane.

     New York City, despite its depiction in film and television, was a remarkably cooperative city to get around in.  I lived there for most of 2009, long enough to realize that its citizens, in large part, were courteous and friendly, eager to offer directions if a newcomer needed direction.  Densely packed subway cars, aside from the occasional act of weirdness, were on the balance efficient and orderly.  Perhaps its because we were all in such dismal proximity, but rank and file New Yorkers left each other alone, just wanted to get where they were going.

     I once heard it said, “Of course LA is a tough place to live.  It’s a city full of people who were too good for their hometowns.”  Granted, there may be some truth to the transient population element’s sense of entitlement.  Our vast geographic sprawl offers little in the way of centralized community.  But Carmageddon showed that under the proper circumstances, we could, if only for a single weekend, get along.  Could that dream possibly continue?  Would a city of four million ever consent to having their names brandished in plain view, if only for the common good?

            The recent rollback of red-light cameras city-wide, portends that there would likely be mammoth efforts of resistance toward such a plan.  Los Angelenos, like much of the US, love our proverbial freedom.  On a personal level, I would feel less special if everyone had their names visible on license plates.  I might even request from the DMV a personalized 4SDG159, just to set myself apart from the flock.  Still, we could benefit from a bit more cooperation in LA, by whatever means necessary.

            Though we’re not exactly a city full of roving bloodthirsty savages as predicted in A Clockwork Orange, the freeways of Los Angeles can be a hostile place.  I would gladly welcome another Carmageddon anytime, if it brought a few days of peace to an otherwise grisly city.  The father-son conversation that follows shows that yes, Carmageddon was a teachable moment, that LA can indeed learn a thing or two from NYC.

“What if you want to go to the store?”

“There are usually supermarkets or bodegas within walking distance.”

“Usually.  And if there aren’t?”

“Some people take the train or a taxi, or get it delivered.  Most places deliver.”

“What if you don’t want to get it delivered?”

“Like, to save a few bucks?”

“…”

“Well, double-bag your stuff and just carry it home, I guess.  That’s what I did.”

“What if your stuff’s too heavy?”

“You can buy a granny basket.”

“Granny basket?”

“It’s an upright cart with wheels.  Toothy seabirds use them.”

“Toothy, what?”

“That’s my name for the elderly people who walk around New York pushing granny baskets.”

“…”

“Its really not that bad.  You’d be surprised how quickly you can adjust to life without a car.”

[words: Zachary Urbina][image: Andy Pratt via nevver]