Am I the only person in New Orleans who doesn't get irrationally and imperiously angry at the mere mention that somebody somewhere once ran a red light? I'm not defending anyone who has but to read some of the venom out there, you'd think that the city was plagued daily by brazenly colorblind drivers who breeze through intersections regardless of all caution or legal suasion. Now I realize there are a lot of hipster libertarian assholes in this town, but it is clearly not the case that they are applying their philosophy to such an extreme degree.
Please don't take this as a defense of reckless driving but surely what we're dealing with in New Orleans is different from the cavalier attitude toward traffic laws and basic courtesy some of these critics (like Gill in the above-linked column) imagine.* We all know that some people tend to accelerate through yellows and end up catching a bit of the red. This is what red light cameras are designed to take advantage of. It's a scheme plain and simple... like siphoning off "micro-deposits" into a dummy bank account. And it is precisely the pompous disproportionate anger like Gill's at an imaginary boogeyman that enables the scheme to operate in the first place.
* If you want to see drivers who really don't pay any attention to traffic signals... or lanes... or other drivers... or anything, go to France. Those people don't care who or what they hurl their Pugeot's at at 80 MPH.
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