Crime and Punishment on the Roads
By Masha Gessen
Driving in this country, one may be forgiven for wondering just why one is expected to get out of the way whenever a car with government plates and a single blue flashing light appears — and, as a rule, approaches at extraordinary speed — in the rearview mirror. Traffic laws don’t really spell out the special rights accorded to such cars; in addition, we know that many of the flashing lights and accompanying rude-sounding horns are installed by car owners without the requisite permits. But now there is a very good reason for getting out of the way of such cars: If you don’t, you could face jail time. Oleg Shcherbinsky, a driver in the Altai region, was sentenced to four years in a labor settlement for the crime of not getting out of the way fast enough when a car carrying the regional governor approached. The governor’s Mercedes tried to pass Shcherbinsky’s Toyota at a reported speed of 200 kilometers per hour, but sideswiped him and flew off the road. Three people, including the governor, were killed. Whose fault was this? According to the court, it was Shcherbinsky’s. How is it possible that a driver who was stopped (he was waiting to turn) in his own rightful lane was guilty of causing the death of people traveling in a car going twice the speed limit? The court ruled that the governor had a right to exceed the speed limit because he was in a rush to make it to a previously scheduled event. That is the incomprehensible legal reasoning. But what’s really fascinating is the philosophy behind this reasoning, and this sentence. Russian officials believe they are immortal. They can drive at 200 kmph down bad roads, wearing no seatbelts, swerving in and out of oncoming traffic, and expect to survive. Or they can order pilots to fly in inclement weather — as Governor Alexander Lebed reportedly did the day he died in a helicopter crash (the pilots were sentenced to three and four years in prison). And if one of these officials dies in spite of all his special privileges, then it must be someone else’s fault — and that someone must be punished. This country has seen this phenomenon before. Back in the early 1950s, when Stalin began to show signs of aging and ill health, it was the doctors who had to be punished: So was hatched the Doctors Plot, a supposed conspiracy of Kremlin doctors who poisoned their patients. It would have been heresy to suggest, much less imagine, that the Soviet generalissimo may one day die. Now it is heresy to suggest that any one of the many generals, ministers, governors and others equipped with a special blue light may be mortal. Contrast this with another society in which some people believe death to be optional. Americans in the middle and upper classes are firmly convinced that death may be avoided. All you have to do is wear your seatbelt, eat your vegetables, do your exercises and avoid smoking. It is easy to run afoul of all the living-right rules: You do have to keep up to date on the latest medical discoveries, keep all your belts and helmets in order, and generally be ever vigilant. But the payoff is great: The New York Times, for example, reported last year that slightly overweight people “have a lower death risk than people of normal weight.” And here you thought risk of death was the same for everyone. It is instructive to compare the different approaches to immortality in Russia and the United States. Americans believe the trick is in following rules, making rules into laws and following those even more stringently. Russians, on the other hand, believe that the trick is in doling out punishment. That sums up broader differences between the two cultures, too. Masha Gessen is a contributing editor at Bolshoi Gorod.
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