LAWS AND "SCOFFLAWS"

In my sometimes fruitless quest to improve my “mastery” of the French language, I look for French equivalents of English words. Travelling with Tom, Henri and Michele’s grandson who is visiting with us from Avignon, I ask him if there is a French word for “scofflaw.”

We had been listening to the radio and heard about the new law of zero tolerance for young drivers using alcohol. On the same program a behaviour expert said that people tend to obey laws. He also said that in other jurisdictions similar legislation has produced between 9 and 25% reduction in youth driving with even a trace of alcohol.

It is difficult to try to explain what scofflaw means. Not enough to say it means “scoffing at the law.” Tom is puzzled but we come up with something. More interesting is the view about “people being obedient to laws.” Of course, it is presumed that most people are. It is also presumed, not without cynicism, that if there were no law we could not depend on the good sense of all people to make the right decision for themselves.

That’s the part that bothers me most. In a civil society we honour rule of law. But even more important, we honour the inherent sense of right and wrong, or more correctly for me: the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. (The right/wrong dualism always gives me a problem because it has no room for anything except absolutes. But that’s another subject.)

The scofflaw, I explained to Tom, is someone who is either above the law or believes he can get away without being caught. I always quote Oliver Goldsmith who said: “A true judge of a man’s character is what he will do if he knows he can get away with it.”

I really do deplore the reality that too many people, if they proceed without the hindrance of enforcement will break the law. Intelligent criminals (how’s that for an oxymoron?) will commit crimes with a low resolution rate, knowing that they will probably not be caught. The fatal flaw is that not getting caught emboldens them so they keep committing the same crime, until inevitably they are caught.

At a far simpler level: this city is full of what are euphemistically called “traffic calming” methods, systems that will deter speeding on residential streets. Everyone knows that residential streets are an essential part of peaceful urban life. So why has it been necessary to put in speed bumps to slow people down? Would they be, without those impediments, scofflaws who use the street where you live as an expressway? And my city, I’m sure yours too, has become a rabbit warren of “do not enter” streets and confusing one-way streets, only to keep traffic off local roads and restrict them to the arterial roads, which as we all know, are chronically gridlocked. I resent not being able to use a public thoroughfare simply because, and rightly so, the local residents hate what speeders do on their streets.

I still don’t have the word for scofflaw. And I still would hope that sanity, conscience, and consideration might one day replace many laws that arise only because without them. people wouldn’t know how to behave.

P.S I detest the expression “nanny state” used by the libertarians and fellow "less government" addicts who think every rule is an intrusion. That’s a topic for another time.