Sunday, August 10, 2008

How Do you see The Law?

A little while back, I received an e-mail referring to the behaviour of drivers on the roads in Victoria at the moment: “Hi Walter: Isn't it remarkable how we see people flaunting the rules every day? One only has to drive on the road for a few minutes and you see people breaking the law. If you asked them they would say, "I wasn't doing anything really wrong, I was only ten kilometres and hour over the limit." The same thing applies to drink driving. Rules as you say are put there for our own good, and even if we don't agree with them it is still up to us to obey them. “

I was particularly taken by his comments on speed limits as it has been getting a lot of press here lately in regard to Speed cameras and how they don’t achieve anything but to raise money for the Victorian Government in fines. I don’t usually like talking about speed Limits, because I, like most people have trouble keeping under them too, as I usually find them restricting to the free flow of traffic. Thus, I really don’t like keeping them, but do as much as possible, because I can’t afford the fines and demerits points, infringements bring.

However that said, occasionally I do exceed the limit and get caught and have to pay the fine etc, which I do with no real complaint other than at my own stupidity at getting caught when I know that there are people and cameras out there to catch speeders.

That is one thing I fail to understand about those who complain about speed cameras being revenue raisers, WHICH THEY ARE BUT THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT. The point is whether we like speed limits or not, or feel that they should be higher; the point is that they are both there. And they are the law.

They are not speed suggestions, but Speed Limits. If we want to break them, then we should also be prepared to pay the cost and not complain about them. If people really do believe the speed cameras are just revenue raisers, they can defeat their purpose every time, by sticking to the sped limit, can’t they? Yes whether we like it or not the sped limits are there and rather than complain about being penalised for breaking them, shouldn’t we just, to the best of our ability, stop breaking them? If we did that then we wouldn’t have to worry about the fines or demerit points to our Licences would we?

This is a clear case of knowing what the law is, breaking it anyway, and then complaining because you got caught. Instead of complaining every time you get caught, you should be grateful for every time you didn’t, shouldn’t you?

Yet many times like in the above example, we complain about the behaviour of others when in fact we are the ones at fault. After, it wouldn’t matter how much the fines were or how many cameras there were, if we don’t speed would it? So what are you complaining about today that the answer is really already in your own hands and it really is all up to you to put it into action and to stop blaming others for your failures? What say you? How do you really see the laws of your land? To obey or to ignore until you are caught and then complain about them? Yes, what say you now?

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