Those Darn Diesels

One of the great ongoing debates that has caused wars, broken relationships, pain, and fury is the argument over freedom and rights. At what point does a person's right to freedom interfere over another person's right to freedom? When a vehicle playing loud unappealing music pulls up beside yours with the windows wide open and the bass so loud it reverberates within your chest, has the "music" infringed on your right not to hear it? If one person's freedom is another person's strait jacket is it really freedom?

On two recent occasions I have felt my rights violated by a diesel engine in a truck. The first occurred at a laundry drive-through. As I was waiting to pick up my laundry, a diesel truck pulled up behind me and began the usual rattle and clatter of unmusical cacophony that we have come to know as the sound of diesel. This particular drive-through is a small tunnel with a low ceiling and narrow walls. In this narrow space the racket became a fortissimo of inharmonious tones that seemed to seep into the deepest regions of human existence. The sound always reminds me of a poorly-oiled skeleton dancing and falling on tin foil. I was quite relieved to pick up my laundry and leave that noisy world.

The second incident happened on my nightly walk as my wife and I strolled through the neighborhood (the term neighborhood is somewhat misleading since we live in the country and have very few neighbors!). We were huffing and puffing up a small hill with the usual concerns of stray dogs, skunks, and the intermittent fast driver. Which, by the way, is very fun for me to shine the flashlight on an approaching fast driver and watch the immediate slow down! But this time the approaching vehicle was a diesel truck and with my usual aplomb I shined the light to remind him to slow down. But as he slowed down, the vociferous odor of his diesel truck, permeated the area and added to our already difficult breathing situation. We were forced to take the pungent stench into our nasal passages and on into our lungs thereby causing both of us to cough. On the positive side, we quickened our pace to escape the redolence and got home quicker than usual.

As I reflect on these two incidences, I realize that our rights for a quiet odor free existence have been violated by diesel trucks. The freedom to own the vehicle of your choice has infringed on my rights to walk without fear of diesel odor and to pick up laundry without my ears being assaulted. I am not addressing the environmental benefits of diesel over gas or the economic advantages but rather am simply addressing the volume and the smell. This is not a call to eradicate the world of the evil perpetrated upon us each and every day in the form of diesel trucks, but this is a call for auto makers to devise a quieter odor-free mode of transportation that is pleasing to all. Those darn diesel trucks--make them quieter with less effluvium and there will be many of us much happier.