Heading to work, I turned left onto West Main Street in Jackson, where the speed limit drops to 20 m.p.h. in less than a mile. It’s less than three miles to I-55 South. But in that short drive, the speed limit goes from 20, 30, 35, and then 45 until you reach the Interstate. I’ve seen, in less than three miles, near misses where people just turn without looking; swerving from their lane to the other lane because they are scrolling on their phone; or driving faster or slower than the speed limit. Usually it’s exceeding it, especially on West Main Street passing Stooges. So I do what everyone else does, adjusting to the ridiculousness.  

It’s what we do in the 21^st century. We adjust. Shift. Alter our course.

Here’s the thing. I drive for my job. It’s my responsibility to safely deliver research participants to their appointments on time. I’ve put a lot of miles on the Nissan Versa, one of our company vehicles. So I see a lot of things that happen on the roads, things that most people may miss. I really wish the police officers working in this area could or would see what I do.  

Running red lights is as normal as speeding on the Interstate. I’ve witnessed this happen more than once on the same day. Let me be clear about what I mean by running a red light. I’m talking about the light being red. Not yellow or slowly changing to red. I’m talking about the light in the opposite direction turning green, people preparing to cross the intersection, and someone coming through the red light. That red light. Not late at night. In the middle of the day, the sun shines bright enough for all to see the infraction.

Then I get tailgated at seventy on the Interstate by someone who can’t understand why I’m driving the speed limit in the right lane.

But if I’m honest, I will speed on occasion. Not often, but I do it. Most of the time, it’s to get out of the way and be safe for everyone else around me. I figure my being late isn’t anyone else’s problem. My poor planning? That’s on me. I guess I want people to be more accountable to themselves and correct their own behavior. Including me.

What concerns me is how many people have stopped noticing and no longer care.

Like it or not, we take our cues from the people above us. (This is not a political statement. It is a human one.) Those who are most visible to us, the ones whose decisions land on our front page, our local evening news, and our social media feed? We see how they act, and those messages travel faster than our imaginations. In less than an hour, it reaches the guy filling up his jacked-up Ford F-350 that’s never seen the slightest bit of mud. It also reaches the soccer mom driving her minivan loaded with her three kids at 85 on the Interstate. Or the sorority girl whose music is too loud to hear the red light. Nobody said it out loud. Nobody needed to.    

This idea of accountability isn’t a concept that started in a courtroom. It starts with us, in those ordinary moments. We see someone in power admit a small thing, telling the truth where it doesn’t matter much. When they slow down, even though no one is watching.

I do my best to do that. I use my turn signal. I stop right at the white line. I stay off my phone. Mostly. Most of the time, I maintain the speed limit. And when I don’t? I own it. Not because I think someone is watching. Because I personally think it matters, whether or not anyone cares.

The road is a shared space. Thirty-ton semi trucks, kids on bikes, and grandmothers running errands use the same pavement. The laws governing that space were written so that none of us has to read each other’s minds. We all follow the same rules, and we all get home alive.

That only works if the majority of us mean it.

I believe most of us still do. I see it alongside the chaos. The driver who waves someone in from a parking lot. The pickup stopping for the pedestrian. The semi that gives a four-wheeler enough room to merge. Small things. Unreported things. People choosing, without an audience, to do what is right.

That’s the road I want to be on. The one where ordinary people, in ordinary cars, hold the line.

Not because someone is watching.

Because the line is worth holding.