WA Secretary of Transportation Can't Drive

Seattlest James isn't the only one with car trubs this week. Doug McDonald failed his eye exam thrice in a row and the State Department of Transportation says it just can't license drivers who can't see. This is fitting or ironic or hilarious because Doug McDonald is the Washington State Secretary of Transportation. Doug suffers from a diabetic condition that has been degrading his eyesight over the course of the last few years.

From the Everett Daily Herald:

"The rules are the rules. If my degree of visual acuity lands me on one side of the line, it's pretty important for me to respect that."

Without a car, he's changing how he gets around. He's bought new lights for his bicycle, has lined up carpools, catches the bus and rides to the grocery store.

Not to belittle Mr. McDonald's condition, but a Secretary of Transportation who can't drive? How great is that?

Still, "I expect spending more time on transit will give me lots of ideas about what transit is doing well and what it can do better," he said.

"My parents live in Seattle, and I'm very interested in how to get from Olympia to Seattle on public transportation. I'm seeing a program which isn't as good as it should be, but we already knew that."

In a sane world we would require people like transportation secretaries to go carless for months at a time, but instead we're stuck with the world that we've got. Gas prices are crazy and getting crazier, we're about to rebuild downtown Seattle around the automobile like it was 1962, and we let our monorail die a death it didn't deserve, but now our state's got a transportation secretary who can't drive. Where are we headed now?

We first spotted this item, btw, via the new Seattle Traffic blog which hasn't been half bad so far.