The first thing you have to realize is that I’ve only been subject to the idiocy of my fellow car-jockeys since my arrival on Earth. (Car-jockey is the right term, isn’t it?)
Anyway. Back on my home world, we über-chimps were never so silly as to develop the idea of a personal car. Why? Well, as a society we decided it was probably not a good idea to allow virtually untrained individuals pilot massive hunks of metal at high speeds through densely populated areas. Just seemed like a bad idea. Especially when you factor in all the aggressive tendencies primates have. What traffic there is on our streets is confined to chimp-moving sidewalks, high-speed zip lines (favoured by all the younger folk) and mass transit like trains and gondolas.
We do occasionally experience branch-lock, when the most popular routes for tree-swinging get jammed up during the evening commute. But then we have a carefully set of guidelines for ensuring that the apes in question behave themselves. We enforce these rules through a combination of biotechnology and rage:
- If an ape tries to jump from one lane to another without properly signaling, the tree delivers a mild shock upon landing on the new branch. This usually results in a spectacular fall. Sometimes fatal.
- Apes following another ape too closely on the branchway will be subject to a more sever shock.
- Apes passing another ape on the inside branch get a warning first. (We have a breed of Fecal Bird that will deliver their pungent message as soon as the tree perceives the infraction.) Then a mild shocking. (And likely a fall.)
Wait, do all your punishments involve an electric shock, possibly resulting in a fall and death?
No. You should let me finish. Really slow swingers using the fast branches will have the Colon Beast of Sigmore XII turn up at their first-born’s third birthday, dressed as Zippy the Clown; naturally, the Beast will unleash its progeny on the miscreant’s large colon, where they will gestate and eventually emerge in a mist of blood, half-digested lunch, and recrimination.
So how does this help me deal with bad drivers?
It doesn’t, yet. But surely your pathetic human technology can do something similar! I’m given to understand your computers are quite good, and many locales have good surveillance. I’m just giving you the template. Besides, it’s nice to think about.
Or you can do what I do — I just take a picture of their license plate, hack into their personal financial records with the tax authorities, and under-report their income for the past six years. I believe the closest analog to the Colon Beast is called the IRS.
Next time:Â How do you calculate your odds of getting lucky in hyperspace?