Sandy Springs: Speed kills, and it’s just plain rude

By Jim Osterman

What is it with drivers in Sandy Springs? And that’s not just my question — it’s one that I hear constantly when people find out where I live. That, and do we still have the town turtles.

Last Monday a man driving near Abernathy and Roswell Road got out of his car at a red light, offered some choice words to a woman who apparently was not driving fast enough, then punched her in the face.

As I wrote this column there had been no arrest. But the woman did get her attacker’s license plate number, which she gave to the police.

This is an extreme case, but what is it about our little corner of Xanadu that pushes our buttons while behind the wheel? We lean on our horns, we zigzag between lanes like we’re driving at LeMans, and if I got a nickel for every extended middle finger I’d have all the nickels ever made.

One theory, and I get this mostly from people who do not live in Sandy Springs, is that we have more than our share of affluent residents who drive expensive rides. They drive as though income and auto confer privilege. They seem to live the bumper sticker: “As a matter of fact I DO own the road.”

A subtheory to this is that the offspring of these rich people are the problem, based on the assumption that all affluent people spoil their children by giving them big-ticket cars and never school them in common courtesy.

There might be some merit to this line of thinking, but I think it’s too easy an explanation. I think our problem goes deeper than economic status. I think what ails us is the feeling that we are in a new era that has addicted us to speed.

Speed in all things, it would seem, has become the over-riding consideration. Services that can be made faster are deemed to be better. A two-day wait for dry cleaning seems unfathomable. We make mental notes at our regular shopping places of the “slow” cashiers and avoid them. We forgo a phone conversation for a text message.

Indeed, where the latter is concerned, why wait to get home when we can do a little sly “sexting”? Deliver me.

I would suggest we all need to take a deep breath and slow down. Behind the wheel. At the store. On the weekend. We do not have to do everything at such a breakneck pace. Some things are not best when they are delivered quickly. Great wine cannot be created over the weekend. The interest on our savings will not substantially compound before Friday. It is almost a certainty that the burger joint will not be out of fries if we are not there right away.

Perhaps Homer — Simpson, not the Greek poet — said it best: “Do you want it right, or do you want it fast?”

Jim Osterman has lived in Sandy Springs since 1962.