“Unless you want to pay for a Police Officer in every car and on every corner, all who have been brainwashed with exactly the same ideals, you will never, I repeat never, get totally consistent implementation of the law.”

Of course we won’t get ‘perfection’. But we can, and should, move towards improving the situation, and certainly not do things which take us in the opposite direction, like calling for bigger leeways on laws.

There are all sorts of laws on the books that are not functioning in society as they are intended, or at all with many of them. So surely we have got to strive to reform all laws that need it and to improve the policing regime, and thus improve overall respect for the law.

As it concerns the issue at hand – speed cameras and speed limit law, it is very easy to both address tour concerns and adherence and respect for the law.

I agree with you that it would be much harder with many other laws, but this should not used as an excuse not to fix or strive to improve what we can.

Many laws are black and white, but many are open to interpretation. Well, the least we can do is to make the black and white ones truly black and white.

I hope you don’t think that there is anything naïve or impractical about that.

Still in response to Quiggley (25 Oct)

“Ludwig said: '.and slowly improve the whole law-enforcement and law-abidance regime.' To say such a thing shows a high degree of naivety on your part.”

Dear oh dear! I don’t believe this. So you are happy NOT to even attempt to improve law-enforcement and law-abidance?

“You see I've heard all these arguments before”

Well I haven’t. Despite years of this sort of debate, I’ve never come across a police officer that has been willing debate this sort of stuff… and I couldn’t have dreamed of encountering one that seems to show a low regard for the rule of law. [I mean no offence, but that is how I see it at present, notwithstanding the possibility of misinterpretation. In fact I'm very pleased that a police officer has entered this discussion].

“I've found that most people who feel so strongly and passionate about them never listen to reason”

You mistake not listening for holding true to one’s beliefs. I listen [read] and respond to just about everything that is put to me. Not many debaters do that. Most people only comment on the things that they most strongly disagree with.

If you have a look at other threads on this forum, you will see that no body concedes defeat to their line of argument! Everyone holds to their beliefs, or bales out sideways if the going gets too rough.

I don’t expect you or the others to concede too much at all. And from my perspective, I am indicating agreement [showing concession] with you whenever I come across it, with the specific intent of presenting the best balance that I can.

“If you can show me that you have at least as much if not more experience in this area than me, then I'll listen to you all day, but until then I don't think we will ever get anywhere.”

This is not good. We should all just respect each other’s views no matter what their background, and just debate the issues without worrying about their qualifications or experience

Ludwig: 'Many laws are black and white, but many are open to interpretation. ... make the black and white ones truly black and white.'

I must be getting old, tired or senile, maybe a bit of all three, but I need some clarification. Can you identify which laws, aspects of enforcement etc that concern you the most and put them in lets say point form. That will at least make it easier for me to address them. Just a couple at a time please.

Basically I don't really see a problem with the way laws are enforced at the moment (traffic laws that is). I don't think we can get to a higher degree of consistency than we are at this time.

Police are drawn from the community and as such to at least some extent are representative of the community in ideals, attitudes etc. That's not to say we don't change over time, I did. We are also fallible to everyday pressures. I could have had a good night, a good sleep and woken up this morning feeling great, or I could have had an argument with the wife, the kids kept me up all night and I get up feeling like you know what. These and other environmental factors effect how I will enforce the law, some will have a general affect, some will have a shot term effect on that day only. I might have attended a fatal that night where two kids were killed, then gone to their autopsies later that day, then on the way home I see a car in front of me with their two kids bouncing around on the back seat. There is a fair chance I'm going to pounced on the driver and not only give them a ticket, but also a piece of my mind. I'm not saying this is right, but it is reality. So given all the vagaries of human life and the different personalities involved, I fail to see how we can get much closer to a consistent level of Policing than we have at the moment.

“Your ideas of total enforcement and removal of discretion are absolutely insane, and the notion that there CAN be such uniformity is just ignorance at its very height”

Steve, I presume you have gained a more realistic perspective of my views since you wrote this.

The rest of your post is not worthy of comment.

From your next post;

“the reasoning BEHIND the laws should be enforced”.

Well of course! And where possible there have to be cut-off points, instead of fuzzy interpretations of what constitutes the motive of the particular law.

Steve, don’t you think that we should all be under the same rules? And that any particular rule should apply equally to all? Can’t you see that if we have fuzzy interpretations or leeways that are deliberately not elucidated, people are going to be copped for minor things in one instance and let off for more serious infringements in another instance?

EQUALITY!! And that means a standard observance of the law and an even standard of policing!

“Your obsession with equal treatment is just ignorant.”

Wonderful. I think you’re a lost cause mate.

Ludwig, I think you take some comments to the extreme and out of context. eg: that I'm not prepared to listen to you because you don't have the same experience as me. Why am I here discussing this with you then?

Yes, you and everyone else is entitled to their views and opinions. Experience in a particular field is important when debating an issue though. You seek consistency in enforcement, well my experience in the courts has taught me that experience is a particular area is very important. I've had Air-conditioning Engineers come up against me and try and say my interpretation of the crash was wrong, you can guess how successful they were.

What weight would my opinion carry in a debate on nuclear physics with a professor in that field when I had only a high school education and was an avid reader of New Science magazine. This is not meant as an analogy between you and I, just an extreme example of what I'm trying to get across. Sure I should have my say, and there is even a chance, a very slight one mind you, that I could be the next Professor Hawking, but the likelihood of me changing the Professor's opinions on nuclear physics is pretty slim and rightly so.

I'm quite happy to debate the issue with you or anyone else, but I'm starting to get the feeling that we are going around in circles. That's why I've asked you for specifics. Generalities by their very nature are too vague to answer specifically.

Don't try and throw at me the old, 'I don't expect you to concede etc'. My whole career, 24 years of it, has been in the listening, adjudicating and actioning of disputes, so I think it fair to say that I have a grasp of how to look at something objectively. I also think that I'm quite capable of admitting I'm wrong when I am. I think you might want to have a hard look at your opinions and ask yourself if after all these discussions with all these different people in the field of traffic that you have had, do you still have the same basic opinions that you always had? If you have then maybe you are the stubborn one and not the rest of us. If you have changed your opinions over time, then why can't you now?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I do think your opinions on some of the issues are very naive and ignorant, and I mean that in the true sense of the words, not as an insult.

I haven't seen anything from you that would change my mind of how things are currently done. That's not to say I haven't been listening, that I'm not interested or that I'm too pig (no pun intended) headed to admit that I'm wrong. It's just that from my stand point, with the experiences I've had, the knowledge I have and the practical experience of trying to interpret, understand, enforce and explain the many, many laws and their changes over the years, leads me to believe, at this point in time, that there really is no better way of enforcing the road rules. Believe me, if I had thought of some I would certainly have said so. If someone can come up with a way to make my job easier, more effective and at the same time making me appear to be a nice guy, I'll jump at it.

Having said this, do put your specific ideas in point form if you wish and I'll see what we come up with.