It seemed a fairly routine news story: Driver ticketed for flashing headlights after being warned of a speed trap, driver challenges ticket, ticket is dismissed. Not something I'd think to blog about usually, but on reflection, I realized this mundane tale has so many facets that it's a perfect parable for the complexity of modern life. Check out the link, then consider:
Our love-hate relationship with "government." The whole question of speeding enforcement and avoidance is illustrative: It's a sort of national sport, if not an obsession. Few of us dispute that governments do, and should, establish speed limits. Government authorities set them as a general guide for safety, and most are not unreasonable given roads, traffic conditions, and the generally bad driving habits of most Americans. Still, everyone believes it's OK for him personally to drive faster. So government attempts to enforce the law are declaimed as merely cynical attempts to increase revenue, the answer to radar is radar detectors, and the answer to speed cameras is new systems that load camera locations into software that warns you through your GPS.
Lying in polls. The newspaper running this story also had a reader survey. When I saw it, 50% of respondents said they "always" warn oncoming drivers of a speed trap, and another 40% said they might, depending on circumstances. If that were true, you'd see a veritable blaze of light like Fourth-of-July fireworks coming at you whenever you were approaching a speed trap. Have you ever seen more than one or two? I haven't.
Interpreting the law. According to this article, Maryland law forbids "driving with flashing lights." This seems to me to refer pretty clearly to a constantly flashing light such as highway maintenance vehicles might have. Was the officer correct to issue a ticket to someone just flashing headlights once? Probably not. After all, flashing headlights (once) does have legitimate functions; it can indicate you are letting somebody pull out ahead of you; sometimes it's a friendly gesture to acknowledge another driver's behavior or even that she drives the same puce VW bug as you do; it's also about the only way to tell some fool at night to get his high beams off. And, as we see here, it's a way to let somebody know there's a speed trap ahead. Could the Maryland lawmakers really have intended to negate all these legitimate uses of headlights?
Writing legislation and regulation that really defines what it's about. Could the law be written more clearly, so there would be no doubt about how the officer should have interpreted it? For this case, surely. Sometimes it seems as if legislators and regulators purposely strive to write ambiguous legislation. On the other hand, every regulation is bound to run up against unpredicted real-life complications. By common sense and accepted usage, the law's reference to "flashing lights" pretty clearly rules out headlights. But wait - when you're driving at 60 (in a 45-mph zone, of course), and your engine just dies on you, isn't punching on your four-way red flashers about the first thing to do, to warn others of a problem? Did the state of Maryland really mean to outlaw that option?
Lawyerly excess. The driver who got his ticket annulled isn't happy yet. He's a lawyer, and he has demanded an apology, while threatening a lawsuit if he doesn't get one. That's over the top, but it's what lawyers do. It brings to mind a regionally notorious case in which a judge sued a dry cleaner for losing a pair of pants - for $50,000 in damages! The case dragged on for months, drove the dry cleaner out of business, and still isn't fully resolved.
Well, that's about it (and plenty enough, you say?). But here in microcosm are many of the same factors and behavior patterns that make all today's bigger, national, front-page issues so complex, be it health care reform, the GM bankruptcy, consumer protection, climate change, revamping the financial system, or resuscitating the economy. The answers our representatives in Congress come up with won't be entirely clear, they won't succeed in dealing with every contingency, they won't satisfy everyone, and they won't escape being challenged. To a surprising degree, we are all still Charlie Chaplin wrestling with the complications of Modern Times.
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