MOTORING: Treating motorists like mobile ATMs?
There is a general public perception that some members of the traffic police (not all, but more than a few) regard passing vehicles as a kind of mobile ATM – walk up to the window, give the password (which is “I am the law”) and draw cash.
To work well, this process requires three ingredients:
First, poor understanding of what “the law” actually is and what it says and is intended to mean, not just among motorists but also among those who draft the law, pass the law and enforce the law and even those who impose penalties for its alleged (and often unproven) breach.
Second, a policy position that, in the face of limited resources, heavy-handed enforcement, even if not proper or always fair, does more good than harm in maintaining some order and encouraging good discipline.
All would agree that even clumsy enforcement is preferable to anarchy … if that is the only choice.
Third, the very widespread willingness of motorists (whether grossly guilty or completely blameless) to play the game, to save themselves time and/or money.
Few resist the practice and fewer still chastise themselves for participating in it — blaming an embedded and apparently irredeemable culture without recognising that their continuing compliance has helped create and sustain it.
If any one of these ingredients was removed, the system would not work — on either a rent-a-pardon or milk-the-innocent basis. That makes the remedies clear, but it does not make them simple.
The law is not a person. It is not even a single line of legislation or even a whole Act of Parliament.
It is the Constitution, all the Acts of Parliament, and myriad notices and orders and by-laws. And none of them is completely stand-alone or independent.
Although one of the most oft-quoted lines is “ignorance of the law is no defence”, the plain fact is nobody knows it all, and to most it is not accessible or fully understood, leaving huge scope for misinterpretation and misuse.
A short, plain-language summary of what traffic laws mean and intend should be accessible to all. A good name for that document might be “The Highway Code”. A copy could be e-mailed to every driving licence holder, with an App for updates.
Try that first, and there would be less to do on the second and third ingredients.
In assessing the level of effort and priority that such a measure deserves, it’s worth remembering that “improper and unfair” enforcement (however imperative it might be in policy) is not some minor anomaly somewhere in the social long grass.
It is an ominous presence for every person in every vehicle on every road trip every day, everywhere. That’s a culture-changing frequency and scale. And it is not pretty. (NMG)
