Let me begin by saying I understand why we need traffic cops. A friend of mine rode in a cab while in Nigeria on business and learned what life is like without any law enforcement. The drivers there basically do whatever they feel like as long as they honk while doing it. There was a car accident blocking both lanes of traffic going the same direction that they were. The lead car began to honk furiously and drove into oncoming traffic, and everyone followed, effectively changing the 4 lane into a two lane for about a mile around that accident. When asked, "What happens if your horn breaks?" the driver responded "Then you can't drive."
Nobody wants that kind of chaos on the roads, so why does it burn so badly when we get a traffic ticket? It does not feel like justice to us and I have been pondering why.
Punishment is all about enforcing the fact that our actions have consequences. As a child, I hated doing homework and often lied about having done it in order to go have fun instead. The consequence of this is bad grades, and a lack of knowledge that make your adult life harder, but the possibility of a hard adult life was too far off to motivate me, so my parents had to put more immediate consequences in place, like getting grounded. Thus I will do the right thing to avoid the immediate consequence and thus avoid the more dire far off consequence of my wrong doing.
Traffic Tickets are in place to do the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. In skipping my homework, I am actually putting my future in jeopardy. I am committing a wrong, and thus even though I didn't enjoy being grounded, I knew I deserved it. Traffic tickets are given out to keep drivers from engaging in activities that could harm themselves and others. Most tickets I have gotten have been for speeding on a straight road in dry conditions when there was not a lot of traffic around. In that case, I was not actually posing a threat to anybody. That ticket is still given out based upon the assumption that I would have driven the same way if traffic was around or in bad weather conditions. So now I am being punished as a deterrent for an action that I might or might not take in a different situation than the one I am in. That is why it feels unjust, because that is too many hypotheticals.
I haven't gotten a ticket in about 5 years now because Im old and slow. Also police in this area have a lot of greater concerns than somebody going 5-10 over. I am not saying that traffic tickets should be abolished, I enjoy the order of everyone following the rules of the road. I'm just examining why it feels like police change from my friend to the enemy when I get behind the wheel.
I actually have a cop story that will further explain the injustice of tickets and the police force in general. I was driving in what I call the "loop" at a shopping center. You know...the road in front of the stores where one is expected to go 5 MPH and stop for pedestrians. I was driving in the loop with my daughter in the car with me when I approached an intersection. There is a stop sign (for the other road NOT THE LOOP) to a road that goes through the parking lot and dead ends into the "loop".
ReplyDeleteTwo drivers back to back ran that stop sign. The first one caused me to slow down to basically a stop...but he made it. What outraged me was the second SUV behind the first car kept going. I had to come to a complete stop in order to avoid hitting him. In my frustration I honked my horn and then I found a parking space.
I watched the SUV let out 3 teenagers at a clothing store and the loop back around to where I had parked. As I was pulling my daughter out of her car seat I prepared myself for a confrontation. Instead, I was greeted with a badge in my face with a middle aged man saying "You know I could take you in for how fast you were going".
Appalled at his blatant abuse of power I stood my ground and said "YOU failed to yield to the right of way". His cocky response with a laugh was "yeah? Prove it" as he drove away.
I really wanted to follow him and beat him to a pulp. Though he didn't give me a ticket I was outraged at the fact that he thought his word was "God". How can he give me a ticket for something I wasn't doing? We hate getting tickets because sometimes it isn't justified. Sometimes it is just a case of a run-in with someone on a power trip having a bad day...or angry that you honked the horn at them and pointed out what they did wrong.