The scene is Wednesday, in a parking lot in Reston, Virginia. A new BMW 540i is pulling forward, out of a parking space. As it begins to turn down the aisle, a white Ford passenger minivan — the kind that’s full of windows — starts backing out of a nearby space, putting it on a collision course. The BMW stops dead, and the driver starts tootling with vigour.

BMW: Toot! Toot!

The minivan keeps coming.

BMW: Toot! ToooooooooooooooooooooooooooooBAP

The driver of the minivan, despite having nearly 360-degree visibility, despite having been moving at only about 1 mph, despite the fact that the BMW driver was laying on his horn, has managed to back into the BMW.

The minivan pulls forward and parks a short distance away. Both drivers get out and inspect their vehicles for damage. Thanks to federally-mandated 5 mph bumpers, there’s no damage at all; thus society has been saved $1000 at a cost of mere millions.

The BMW driver, a middle-aged man, looks disgusted, but the minivan driver, a fat woman who’d been blocking my access to the Coke machine at Jerry’s Subs and Pizza a few minutes earlier, is livid. She’s shouting, waving her arms, yelling at the man who’d been sitting with his foot on the brake and his fist on the horn as she drove into his car.

Hell in a handbasket.