CLOGGED ARTERIES: The unseen cost of road-blocking protests.
Recent events in Israel and Gaza have sparked a wave of protests, with some activists in major cities using a familiar tactic: obstructing traffic.
While this seems to have been an effective strategy by protesters across the political spectrum to draw attention to a variety of issues in recent years — including racial injustice, climate change, and pandemic restrictions — these protests raise an important question: At what cost do these disruptions come?
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about a demonstration disrupting traffic at the Los Angeles airport recently, Michael Beer, the director of Nonviolence International, said that it can be hard for protesters to cut through the media environment without disruptive action like blocking traffic. He then added, “But you have to think: Are you stopping the ambulance from getting to a hospital and somebody’s going to die?”
Research on road closures suggests the answer is probably yes.
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The issue at hand, of course, is not the right to protest; non-violent protest is a cornerstone of our democracy and our American identity. But a commonsense extrapolation of the marathon study, and other studies that illustrate how mere minutes matter in medical emergencies, tells us that even when the protest itself is peaceful and protesters clear the way for ambulances or other emergency vehicles, transit times will still be longer, particularly when accounting for the ripple effects that a blockage in one area can cause for motorists miles away.
If activists are indeed committed to peaceful protest, they must be cognizant of the real harms of road-blocking protests that are more problematic than a simple nuisance to commuters, nearby businesses, and others. It is unlikely that protesters would ever find out if an ambulance was delayed and a patient was physically harmed or died as a result of that delay. If protesters were aware of the extent to which those with life-threatening medical emergencies could be dying as a result of their blockade, would they choose differently?
Given that they share the same “Progressives Against Progress” anti-modernity worldview as the climate change apocalyptic narcissists who similarly block roads and destroy artwork, then the answer is “No.” Next question?