Page 89 - ECOlogic Book

From the Other Side
(Spring, 1995)

It was late. Traffic on the freeway was moderate. Joe, on his way home,
noticed a car up ahead, weaving crazily back and forth across four lanes.
“He’s drunk!” thought Joe, “he’s going to kill someone!” Instinctively, Joe
slowed down, giving the drunk driver lots of room. Joe noticed that the cars
on either side of him were doing the same. Then, as the drunk’s car drifted
into the far left lane, he noticed the car on his right picking up speed,
passing the drunk, pulling to the left lane in front of the drunk’s car.

When the drunk started to drift right, the driver in front of him did the same,
slowing. Getting the picture, Joe pulled into the right lane and sped up until
his car was next to the drunk’s car. The driver who had been to Joe’s left
did the same, pulling beside the drunk till his car was next to the drunk’s
car, on the left. In his rear-view mirror, Joe saw another car pull cautiously
up behind the drunk’s car, boxing him in.

It all happened quickly, as if it had been choreographed. None of the four
drivers who boxed in the drunk’s car was in touch by phone with any of the
other drivers, but each one knew what had to be done. The lead car slowed
gradually and moved toward the far right lane. The other cars did the same,
with Joe gradually falling behind as the other cars forced the drunk off the
highway and onto the shoulder, where they all stopped and waited for the
police.

This story continued to haunt me, weeks after I heard it on the radio. The
unplanned, almost instinctual cooperation between four people, who had
never met, for the good of everyone on the road, amazes me. How could
this have happened in our time of ruthless competition and wanton violence?
How could four strangers agree, with no words between them, to risk their
own lives to get a drunk off the road?

The story was still making grooves in my mind when I attended a major
conference, weeks later, on Waste and Energy Efficiency in Detroit. Speaker
after speaker from business and industry told stories of how they had
exchanged information with their competitors to help their whole industry
create less pollution. There were moments when I forgot that I was in the
midst of downtown Detroit, listening to captains of industry. Stories were
told of competitors touring plant facilities by invitation to see how one
company was addressing pollution prevention. Others told of calling a
competitor to ask how they had solved a particular pollution problem.

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