Site of Bob
		Professional Play Thoughts I've had Traditional Art Electronic Art Performance Projects & Ideas Theories
Driving Links: Where can a Bay Area driver go for a driver's workout? Hang your Ego on a peg and buy one of Gordon Booth's driving courses. What a smart guy has to say about traffic flow Go back to Solutions Share your graceful driving story! MESSAGE BOARD
		send email to Bob top

Artist on road to taming the beastly driver in all of us

Suzanne T. Storar

ROAD RAGE and bad drivers are a constant source of conversation. Yet no one ever confesses to being a tailgater or a maestro of the obscene gesture. Robert van de Walle believes the beast, or the beastly driver, lurks within each of us. He is on a mission to get Bay Area motorists to "Drive with Grace."

Van de Walle's commute from Alameda to work in San Francisco started out peacefully. The graphic artisttook the ferry every morning, watched the sunrise over the hills and even meditated to the deep, harmonicroar of the ferry boat.

"I was always in such a good mood when I reached work," he says.

About three years ago, his company asked that he drive in so his car would be available during work. Van de Walle soon found himself acting angry and competitive behind the wheel.

One morning at the Bay Bridge toll plaza, he watched a delivery truck and a car drive into each other. The slow-speed accident wouldn't have seemed unusual except van de Walle noticed the two drivers making eye contact before the crash, daring each other to keep moving forward.

Something snapped and van de Walle realized what his aggressive driving attitude could lead to. His first course of action was to drive nicely, but he became the target of frequent abuse. When he slowed down to let a car change lanes, drivers sped past on his right or gave him the one-fingered salute. Sometimes he would wave a car in, but the driver still wouldn't go.

"I guess there was no way to tell if I was being nice or if I'd just blipped out for a second," he says.

So the graphic artist decided to plaster his intention to drive courteously all over his car. And the horns finally stopped honking.

A yellow traffic sign indicating a merge plus admonitions such as "Signal!" and "Accelerate, then merge" adorn the car. A zipper across each side symbolizes something that works well when each part -- a zipper tooth or a cooperative driver -- takes its turn.

The car not only sends a message to other drivers. It helps van de Walle curb aggressive tendencies.

"If I were in a regular car, at any point I could decide not to drive gracefully," he says.

The graphic artist has also drawn a merge sign on a car hanger, like the "Baby on Board" signs of a few years back. By placing the hanger in car windows, drivers commit to courteous driving, lest they be labeled hypocrites.

"I think it will only take a few drivers to commit to driving with grace to see a difference," he says.

Interested drivers can print the sign, ideally onto yellow paper for maximum impact, from his Web site: http://geocities.com/bobvanx. He hopes to find a sponsor to help create more sophisticated static cling window stickers.

Van de Walle believes that poor road design and a "me first" culture makes Bay Area driving more hazardous than elsewhere.

"I learned to drive in Southern California where the freeways are like something designed by Walt Disney," he says. He believes L.A. drivers don't waste time rubbernecking and chasing down or antagonizing other drivers -- because they want to minimize their time on the road.

"Of course, the gang activity there might make people less likely to confront another driver," he says.

Van de Walle would like to see his ideas taken a step further, to engineered studies described on his Web site. Right now, he is happy to have changed his own driving.

"It's a long-term project," he says. "The core of it really was changing myself first. Making sure I didn't have an out."

He links his desire for cooperative, graceful driving to his calling as an artist.

"It's the artist's duty to create beauty and harmony," he says. "I look at this as traffic sculpting."

You can see van de Walle's car in this September's "How Berkeley Can You Be" parade and the ArtCars Exhibit at Jack London Square. Or just look for him driving, courteously, in a freeway lane near you.

Call Suzanne T. Storar at 523-6641 or e-mail [email protected] with information about Alameda's interesting people, places or events.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws