Had lunch today with a youthful colleague from the Netherlands, and we had occasion to discuss our various vehicular indiscretions, and the response of the local constables.
I was ticketed last year on my motorcycle by a local policeman with a laser speed detector; I saw him at a distance, but I assumed he was using radar. Motorcycles have a small cross-section, so we have to be relatively close to the radar gun to register. Sadly, that isn’t the case with a laser.
I slowed down with what I thought was plenty of distance, and was shocked, really just shocked to be pulled over. I was cooperative, the officer was polite, and instead of writing my ticket for the actual speed he’d measured, reduced my speed, raised the noted speed limit, and so meaningfully reduced the severity of the ticket (and fine).
My Dutch friend and I discussed the pros and cons of fighting tickets (I almost never fight them; I have been lucky enough never to have received a ticket I didn’t deserve, and I view it as a kind of tax on speeding). But I have a number of friends who do and have successfully fought tickets in court.
My friend was somewhat shocked. In the Netherlands, tickets are given by teams of police officers, who collect the fines on the spot. There is no appealing to a court. There is no discretion on the part of the officer. If you are pulled over, you are guilty, you pay your fine, and you go on. Unless they impound your car on the spot, which they do for various moving violations.
Somehow, this difference typifies the American attitude toward government. Personal, messy, possibly forgiving (or possibly the opposite, if you are less practiced at dealing with police officers than I may be). My rights equal those of the officer in front of the court (in theory, anyway). In the Netherlands, the officer is the state.
Now there are arguably advantages to that system. Minorities get tickets at the behest of an objective radar gun, not a possibly prejudiced officer. The powerful have a harder time getting off by simply being who they are.
But something is lost, as well. Some call it the difference between being a citizen and a subject; I’m not completely sure how to express it. But it’s an important difference. The imperfections of our system aren’t something to necessarily be rationalized out of existence. In some ways, the imperfections are the system.
I need to think about that some more.