I'm the last person that would consider owning a Hummer. I've spent the last several years writing and complaining about these and other oversized SUV's, or Selfish Urban Vehicles.  

Driving around Dallas the past year and a half since I moved back here from the West Coast has made me think otherwise, at least for a few moments. Those few moments are the ones where I see people's cars flip over from driving too fast or one person slamming into another right in front of me.

Or the moment when my wife calls screaming and says some idiot driving too fast in the rain slammed into her car, sending her hurtling across the freeway and into the median. My grandmother was in the car, and is still recovering.  

So when I see a self absorbed suburbanite rushing up behind me talking on the cel phone eating a sandwich I fantasize: I need a bigger car, a monstrosity, a land yacht. One bigger, meaner than the other guy's, one that looks meaner. Time for a Hummer,

Of course I would refer a hybrid vehicle. But in this environment of oversized SUV's I'd be the sandwich.

Let's face it: the freeways are an idiot fest. I'm convinced many people shouldn't be driving, and others need to be severely restricted (or restrained).

As I've had lots of time to sit in traffic and think about these events, watching buffoons in would-be coffins on wheels, I've come up with a few ideas.

One, where are the highway patrol? They are few and far between as far as I can tell.  On Southern California freeways they seem to be everywhere. And whatever happened to the Dallas Police doing rolling traffic slow downs?

Two, how about much stiffer penalties? Start with tripling everything. Then double it again. Better yet, how about tying the fees to the blue book value of the car, or last year's tax return? Some European countries take a similar approach.

A $100 ticket doesn't mean much to people driving 50k + vehicles. Many of those vehicles are SUV's and they are the much more dangerous to other motorists than are ordinary cars. They are also dangerous to their owners and increase our dependence on foreign oil.

Third, how about a ring of radar detectors on all the freeways that work like the toll tag detectors? There's a system like this in London. It would certainly slow down traffic.

While not particularly in favor of SUV's, I'm even less in favor of government restrictions of personal behavior.   But in this case it's a public safety issue. And if we are going to act like children we need to be treated like children. More police, stiffer penalties, less leniency.

Ok, so much for the Hummer. Now for the gun.

Beyond the greed and selfishness that drives the Hummer Impulse, Dallas has more than it's fair share of cruelty and violence. For some good reasons, it has been called the "city of hate." and many thought this infamous moniker would remain in the past. But there may be reasons to resurrect it: exaggerated class relations, aggravated race relations, and poor social services.  

Last week a colleague was stabbed multiple times after catching a person breaking into his car. He is in critical condition. Several blocks down the street from my house two people were murdered.  

OK, we are scared now. But what to do? The impulse to buy a gun appears logical. But is contributing to the culture of violence and the further disintegration of the social fabric the right response?  

For what it's worth, I think guns should be mostly illegal and otherwise very, very hard to get. Penalties for possession, as with traffic violations, should be astronomical and progressive besides.  

I really don't want either of these things, a Hummer or a gun. Both are dangerous, unnecessary, and ridiculous.   But it's easy to understand why many people would. The world, and in particular our little flat, hot corner of it, is dangerous and random. Worse, it's still rather primitive. We feel we need "protection."  

What we need is an intolerance for the glorification of violence. This includes entertainment, news, and politics.  

More to the point, we need to bring ourselves to rise above our primitive natures and look forward to a world where acting on our basest instincts and impulses in anti-social ways is simply embarrassing.  

That's the only way to get rid of guns and Hummers. Laugh and point fingers at people who own them.

(OK. So maybe this isn't the best idea I've ever had...)