Highway disaster unfolds in slow motion and suddenly. The chain of causation sets up and becomes unstoppable. It will play out. Such was the disaster that occurred on Thursday April 10, 2014 at around 5:40 pm on Interstate 5 (‘the I-5’) near Orland, CA, a small city in the northern Sacramento Valley sixty miles south of Redding and 100 miles north of Sacramento.

Despite a positive balance sheet and “new core values” presumably different from those influencing ‘the old GM’ to delay recalling for at least 10 years sub-compact models with faulty ignition switches allegedly linked to at least 13 deaths and 31 front-end crashes, ‘the new GM’ is straddling the recall issue. CEO Mary Barra has commissioned a full internal report, but when asked by a congressional sub-committee in early April if she would fully share it, she refused such a commitment.

Media saturation tends to normalize even the weirdest stories. The New Jersey ‘Bridgegate’ story, also referred to in public pronouncements as “Governor Chris Christie's Fort Lee New Jersey traffic jam" may be in danger of heading in that direction.

Seasoned car buyers or lessees have learned that when they drive their new or new-to-them vehicle off the dealership lot, they remain only a file number/phone call/letter away, and that with warranty and regular maintenance requirements, they will be back. Recall notices also require attention on the part of vehicle owners and the dealership’s servicing department.

Transportation policy development and implementation is vast, complex, and hugely expensive but so vitally important—arguably a necessity for collective survival in our urban-centric world— that any shirking of the challenge is really not an option. But in comparison with the seemingly unquestioned worthiness of and hence bottomless public purse for health and education policy development and implementation, transportation policy development and implementation and the funding for same is the subject of seemingly endless questioning, re-definition, and rethinking.