Promising to save us from ourselves

Memo to Tracey Spicer regarding her put-your-brain-into-gear-before-opening-your-mouth advice for Mark Webber (The Courier-Mail, March 30): mocking laws and regulations doesn’t mean one wants a lawless world of chaos; it is about trying to have us see that rules, however well-intentioned, cannot make us completely safe, happy or anything else of serious value.

Rules are necessary but not sufficient. It’s necessary, for example, to specify which side of the road to drive on. There’s also value in posting a stop sign at a dangerous intersection.

But these rules are always contingent on individual circumstances. If someone is coming at you head-on, for whatever reason, it makes sense to momentarily drive on the wrong side of the road. If you have a good view of oncoming cars, then it may be fine to pull into traffic without coming to a dead stop at the sign.

It’s an irony lost on Spicer that the worst drivers on the road are those who believe safety is about driving by the book.

The problem with this country, the problem alluded to by Webber, is that we’ve lost faith in the capacity of the individual to learn from their mistakes.

When I was growing up there was still a sense that getting it wrong was a crucial part of becoming a worthwhile member of society. There was space in your world to stuff up.

Today, it’s perceived there is too much at stake to allow such a philosophy. An unconditional, larrikin nature has given way to self-importance and a seriousness that actively discourages all the characteristics that made this country great.

Life is now more important than how we live it.

True, reckless driving is a problem. Justin Williams, the hoon responsible for killing a family of three in Queanbeyan, was quite possibly a dickhead, as Spicer suggests.

What matters here, however, is how truthful we are about why he was this way and what we, as a community, choose to do about it.

Maybe, just maybe, young blokes, in part, drive like ratbags because they’re trying to send a subtle message to those who claim to know better.

There is a fine line between rules needed for structure and those designed to control people because we fear their mistakes will be too costly.

A recommended speed for an upcoming corner is practical and worthwhile; repossessing cars is an irrational act of desperation.

When a politician or police representative ups the ante on road behaviour, young people intuitively know that inferring you have a final solution is a bluff, leading some to just drive faster and faster.

They want us to concede an annoying but unavoidable reality: it's weak to believe more legislation and threats will make the world the place we want it to be.

The one thing Spicer got right was that people contradict themselves by complaining about the nanny state only to then vote in those who promise to crack down on problems by introducing more laws, employing extra police or increasing penalties for doing the wrong thing. The state has a duty of care to its people. But the most profound aspect of this is to acknowledge that our safety, while enhanced by rules and information, is ultimately a personal responsibility because the choices we make in life cannot be made on our behalf.

The desire to have it both ways is a failure of leadership. Politicians don’t want to admit to the limitations of the state because they're afraid of being voted out. So instead, they perpetuate the confusion by promising to save us from ourselves.