An LA moment: When all voluntarily yield, society as whole protects everyone’s rights

My dad once showed tween-age me a magical power that I could, under certain circumstances, call upon. With the power, I could control strangers around me with a measure of certainty that I had not encountered in any other time or place.

We were visiting family in Los Angeles. I was enraptured by my older, much fancier cousins who were oh-so sophisticated. They wore cutting-edge fashion and dropped big names from the entertainment world: stars to me, schoolmates to them. My parents whisked us between tourist attractions and hot spots, eager to pack our trip with memorable experiences and adventures. We needed to cross a busy, multi-lane thoroughfare with busy traffic zipping by us. Dad ceremoniously urged me to watch him before dramatically stepping off the curb onto a cross-walk.

All cars, from all directions, halted, waiting for my Podunk family from the Midwest to cross all lanes before they zoomed on down the road.

“That would never happen at home,” Dad said. I responded with an eye-roll, as unimpressed as I imagined my cool cousins would be. “You’d get hit by a car,” he added, further evidence that he was a rule-following square, fan-boying after safety compliant citizens.

It was a while before the act of yielding to pedestrians took on more significance than simple nerdery. It was years before I found myself grasping my daughter’s hand in a mall parking lot’s crosswalk, just to have a loud car speed into the crossword, blaring its horn, its young drive hollering impolite names and telling me to to “slow down.” We jumped back, feeling the disturbance of the air as he accelerated within inches of us.

Another time a driver turned right into a crosswalk, not slowing when she looked up from her phone to see she was about to run me and my husband over. She simply looked back at her phone.

Both drivers chose to muscle through, depriving us of our right-of-way, but more disturbingly, threatening our safety. In the physical face-off between Emily and family vs. car, the cars would have won.

I recently returned to Los Angeles with my daughter and mom, once again visiting family. I was the only driver of the rental car and carted my beloved family around. I worried my Midwestern highway driving might leave me ill-prepared to drive on frenetic, 12-lane highways.

I braced myself for my first highway entrance, calculating the speed and distance of the cars, hoping desperately for an opening to slip into, astonished when the cars parted for me to simply merge between them. Over my week of driving, I experienced a level of courtesy I rarely see on Kansas City roads. Tight clumps of traffic loosened to allow others to cross multiple lanes to reach their exits. Unlike I-435’s aggressive jockeying for lanes, I found civility on the 405, where drivers cooperated and yielded to one another in pursuit of the common goal of getting to places safely.

I also found opportunity to repeat my dad’s crosswalk nerdery when crossing four lanes of traffic. High-dollar performance cars and luxury sedans anticipated our need to cross and stopped voluntarily, then waited patiently for our little gaggle, including a slow-moving senior, to cross. The driver of a yellow Lamborghini cocked his head in curiosity when I energetically waved and mouthed “thank you,” as if he found my gratitude for him not running over us unusual.

Only by contrast can certain magic be recognized. Dad wanted me to see that when society collectively protects each other’s rights, voluntarily yielding, giving up tiny increments of time, we all get where we’re heading. But those with the muscle and power have to recognize, and sacrifice for the rights of the vulnerable.

Emily Parnell lives in Overland Park and can be reached at emily@emilyjparnell.com.