CBC Calgary delivers this hilarious indictment of an evil Calgary rock (28 second video at the web site).
The CBC outlet blames the rock for causing cars a big world of hurt. Naughty evil rock.
It’s a diverting gag. But to media watchers, the underlying mentality is all too common. The victim is assumed to be at fault for their own death or injury. Or to a lesser extent, the vehicle itself is. It is rare to find a report that accurately pins presumptive blame on the operator of the motor vehicle.
It’s a societal blind spot — we are perfectly happy with significant death, injury and property damage due to various failures of motor vehicle operators. We tend to focus elsewhere for blame and remedies. Anywhere, it seems, but behind the wheel. And legal remedies, such as penalties, are laughable, in far too many cases.
It’s motordom’s most effective achievement, plain and simple.
Please do not blame the rock, it is just sitting there minding its own business.
Rock, Car, paper!
I wouldn’t read too much into it
– the sarcasm is obvious and the translation is…
“stupid driver”.
That’s not to imply that all drivers are stupid, but that this particular driver was grossly incompetent.
Now I suppose that there may be a general trend across society of not blaming people for their poor decisions or lack of competence, but that’s in general and not necessarily specific to drivers.
This CBC (and by extension, PT) filler article is in the same class as numerous videos online of walkers or cyclists falling in the same spot, some of whom are recognized as doing so repeatedly, ostensibly unable to learn from previous mishaps.
‘It is never wrong to plug your own line; it is almost always wrong to write off others.’ Oskar Spate