Every couple of months, there seems to be a Red & Black debate in which some people complain about other people crossing streets too liberally and others gripe about insane drivers nearly hitting those who think they have the right to cross.

My personal favorite happened last month with the infamous cover story of the guy nearly getting impaled with photographic evidence. The article and photos prompted nearly 20 comments on Redandblack.com, which is probably a record, at least for this semester.

Amidst all of these comments, someone humorously described the agility they developed from crossing streets in dangerous situations as the result of natural selection.

Natural selection is the process by which individual organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive than those with unfavorable traits. The term was introduced by Charles Darwin in 1859. Or at least that’s what Wikipedia says. I got to thinking about it, and it occurred to me that the writer really didn’t explore the studio space with this one.

Anyway, here’s what I’m proposing: forget all of those silly “laws” and start thinking big picture -when you see someone crossing the street when they shouldn’t be, accelerate in the name of Darwin. It’s your brand-spankin’- new moral obligation.

There’s also the conundrum about where to classify the crazy driver in this theory. Sometimes the walking person actually has the right-of-way. For this, I propose the carrying of golf ball-sized rocks. Shiny ones. This way, one can take out their shiny golf rocks and threaten to throw it at the oncoming lunatic.

If the lunatic does not notice it, the beholder can use it to do whatever their imagination offers. My interest in this topic was reignited when I saw some stupid, err, I mean, brave student decide it was crucial to squeeze in between two UGA buses that were about to be close enough together to make sweet love to one another.

My first reaction was “Holy crap! That poor guy almost lost the privilege of walking for the rest of his days in the name of being on time to class – and I could’ve been late to class too, which is much, much worse.” Then I realized that I’d take an absence to help explain things to the police, coroner, etc. in the name of Darwin.

I’m sure there are benefits to there being traffically-challenged people in the world, but I’m only 22 and I haven’t quite figured out what these benefits are yet. Overall, I’m just saying that drivers shouldn’t feel bad for thinking about hitting those that dare cross in front of them.

Science is on their side when the law is not. For those of you reading The Red & Black from prison right now, I hope this brings you some comfort.

- Paul Rehm is a columnist for The Red & Black.
Please do not kill him or anyone else.