- Bribe Fighter
- 14 years ago
- 1175 views
Respect the law - a story of feasibility
This is the story as narrated to me by a friend:
I refused to pay a bribe to a traffic policeman who caught me for using a handsfree while driving. As a protest to the very law itself, I refused to pay a bribe. He also told me that I owed a second fine for listening to music that was too loud. At this time I was confident that the decibel level in the car was neither a) Interfering with my concentration of the road nor b) At an absolute level exceeding a chatty co-passenger.
The policeman agreed with me on the sense of the law, as such has happened before, since he too cannot understand how to execute a law that forbids a) people keeping their phones ON in a car, despite the prevalence of a hands-free system or b) Listening to music that is subjectively deemed too loud.
As such, he himself has no respect for the spirit of the law, and instead uses it as a rule book from which to earn his under-the-table money.
If I see a speed sign that states 50kmph on the expressway or sea-link, I do not respect it. I call it flawed and will never try to observe that speed. However, if it did state 80/90kmph, which is a REALISTIC law, I would definitely adhere to it.
The base laws need to be feasible. Without that, there is no respect and the attitude is "Anyway we are going to break the rule, so might as well do it completely". This stops people from driving at 140kmph and stops people from investing in a handsfree.