by Chad Fujihara

My New Year’s Resolution: I will write something every single day and post it for everyone to see.

#45: Unnaturally depressed

Spending as much time as I do driving around Wai‘anae these days, I can’t help but notice a rather disturbing trend: there’s a lot of roadkill out here. Seriously, driving around all the other parts of this island, the Wai‘anae coast is by and large the most lethal to those of the furred or feathered species.

I’ve seen birds, mongooses, cats and dogs numerous times on the highway and even on residential roads. If a bird is run over in a suburban neighborhood, exactly how fast is someone driving that it can’t fly out of the way? I mean, is that really the root of the problem: people drive way too fast out here?

For a lot of folks, I can understand that most of the Wai‘anae coast is pretty far from everywhere. Some folks like the “seclusion” and I’m guessing most of them live in Makaha. Everyone else apparently considers their car a space shuttle that needs to go fast enough to hit escape velocity just to leave the coast.

As an animal lover, it’s really sad seeing all these animals killed, but even more so seeing these animals disregarded.

It comes in stages as far as I can see.

First, when the incident happens one of two things happens: either the driver feels a pang of remorse having ended the life of another living being or they’re annoyed that they now have to make a point to clean a part of their car “extra.”

Next, other drivers, if not following immediately behind the first driver, will attempt to avoid the fresh corpse either out of respect or because they too don’t want to have to clean a part of their car “extra.”

Finally, someone at some point, assuming no one has taken steps to clear the road or whatever mystical ninja cleanup crew hasn’t done its strange job, will actually run over the body. This is where the disregard comes into play, because once the animal becomes remotely disfigured it is not considered something that was once living and breathing. It may as well be a piece of carpet laying atop a paint spill, since that’s how most drivers regard it from then on.

Maybe I shouldn’t feel too sad about the whole thing. A lot of the creatures that end up part of the pavement are feral to begin with, by-products of poor pet population control or simply wild animals. Some of them might be pets that were either forgotten or neglected, both depressing situations. Maybe that means that for some of these animals a speeding car was like some sort of release from suffering a worse fate. I don’t think I have the mental ability to process this accordingly.

People, please drive sensibly and cautiously. Leave early so you don’t have to rush. Make your drive-time more enjoyable with your favorite music or other audio recordings, so that you’ll want to take your time driving just to hear the last few minutes of something. Just be aware that you are driving and that there’s a whole world that isn’t moving all that fast around you.