I had been thinking for years about a column that would clarify for those who might not know or be clear about what the laws of the U.S. Virgin Islands say. And to be fair, most lawyers in the V.I. would agree some of the code is ambiguous and even “outdated.” But that is not my job to fix, though perhaps a gentle nudge through this effort might encourage some clarity and updating.
A decade or so ago when I first thought about it and discussed it with the then-executive editor, Bill Kossler, I wanted to call the effort: “It’s the Law!”
I have mellowed since then and thus, when I stumbled upon the poem that follows by 19th century poet and transcendentalist Margaret Fuller,* the notion came alive again under this gentler rubric: Bowing to the Spirit of the Law
Freedom and Truth
by Margaret Fuller
The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend,
Freedom is but a means to gain an end.
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine
Be consecrate to thought still more divine.
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw
Is liberty to comprehend the law.
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame,
Comprising means and end in Truth’s great name.
As a lifelong lover and reader of poetry, Fuller’s eight-line verse spoke directly to me of freedom and respect, saying, “True Freedom is to comprehend and obey the law, especially where the law gives rise to consideration for others as an act of kindness and dedication to the safety and well-being of all living things.”
It is in the spirit of the law that I have come to this column, which has also sprung from years of frustration and fear while observing the carelessness that has arisen over my lifetime with regard to caring for and about someone or something other than ourselves.
We live in a violence-ridden world. Much of the savagery highlighted, fed and nurtured by commerce-driven, mainstream and anti-social media springs from buried, and thus unresolved, trauma and pain.
If only those who wantonly flout the law understood the congestion of harm they were contributing to, perhaps they would reconsider the behavior that daily and even hourly threatens our peace.
It is with that intention of understanding, and thus reconsideration, that I consecrate our “codes” of conduct — as we refer to our laws in the Virgin Islands and elsewhere — as I hope and pray it is not too late for us to change.
I will start with stopping; the simplest of universal laws signified by the hexagonal red sign found in the same shape in local verbiage at intersections across the globe.
I was fortunate to be taught to drive by my mother who, among her other jobs with Bell Telephone Corp., taught driver education to employees. Remember, she taught driver ed in the early ’50s when there were only about 2 billion people on the planet, and automobiles were relatively new, relatively slow moving and much rarer contraptions. Needless to say, no one was texting while driving.
All laws across the nation, including New York State where I was born, basically say the same thing about what the stop sign requires: “Come to a full stop, yield the right-of-way to vehicles and pedestrians in or heading toward the intersection. Go [only] when it is safe.”
The additional common-sense directive my mother gave me was, “look both ways,” which seems necessary and common-sensical in order to know when it is safe.
The consequences of not respecting the directives above are dire. After going down the Google Gopher hole, I feel safe in saying that more than half of all traffic injuries and one quarter of all traffic fatalities occur at intersections.
This, of course, includes the more frightening and egregious act of total disregard for the sacredness of life — running red lights. In January 2025, that specific act resulted in two tourists being thrown “up into the air” by a vehicle driven, as far as we know, by another human being who was running a red light in disregard of the qualified “left on red after stopping.” Allow me to add: “much less looking, for God’s sake.”
To add personal, unresolved (though I have tried and tried) trauma and harming thoughts to injury: When I was 25 years old I was struck by a vehicle while crossing (not in a crosswalk and late at night, to acknowledge my part of the responsibility) a long city stretch in Rochester, New York, called Lake Avenue. The driver of the vehicle that struck me was going 40 miles an hour, according to the police report, which was presumably the speed limit at the time. I too was thrown into the air as were the tourists and landed on the hood, my barely-adult skull cracking the windshield.
When I read the story of the hapless pedestrians who trusted the traffic lights when crossing the intersection by the Lucinda A. Millin Home senior center on St. Thomas, I was transported back 50 years to an occurrence I do not consciously remember, no doubt due to the resulting concussion. Yet, the trauma lives on in my body somewhere, also triggering thoughts of violence when I observe the insanity of drivers running stop signs and red lights.
Addendum: We must not disregard the trauma of the perpetrators, who will carry their own psychic injury, if left unresolved, of being a first-hand witness to the pain — even death — they have caused. That is what is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and widely acknowledged as a mental health disorder and recognized as such in the DSM-III and DSM-5. If there was only one victim and one driver, we now have two people with mental health disorders when stopping would have cost nothing but a movement or two of consideration.
So, the ask here is best articulated by The Supremes: Stop in the Name of Love
*Poet, essayist, journalist, and transcendentalist activist Sarah Margaret Fuller was born on May 23, 1810, in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. She is best known for her controversial treatise, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Greeley & McElrath, 1845). Fuller died on July 19, 1850, in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York.
