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Hit and Run Nation

The more I think about it, the less I understand the expert who told me all of us are capable of hitting and running.

The more I think about it, the less I understand the expert who told me all of us are capable of hitting and running.

Dr. Leon James, psychologist who specializes on the behavior of motorists, told me that it isn't a question of morality. It's a question of conditioning. What we need to do is visualize getting into an accident and think about what we'd do - stopping the car, making sure you did no damage, facing the music if you did.

And that if we don't do such training, for as long as two weeks, we're as apt to hit and run as the next bozo.

Makes no sense, I say. Doing the right thing is conditioned into some of us.

But no, he told me for today's metro column. What I'm forgetting is the emotional flood that overwhelms the normal thinking when you've hit something with your car. It's disabling.

You know what's enabling?

Pennsylvania's law that rewards a drunk hit and runner for going home, sleeping it off, then copping to the catastrophe.

Read all about it.