Safety, freedom, and moral development

So, the speed cameras are gone. Well, not gone, but inactive. And the results have been pretty obvious and utterly predictable. We are not-so-gradually returning to the status quo ante where most people drive too fast and some people drive ridiculously fast. But there is a sort of moral silver lining to all this rediscovered recklessness.

In the old days, the only reasons I had for driving the limit were moral (since I rightly believed that I could get away with speeding if I wanted to). I was submitting to the law only because it was the law. When the cameras appeared, I suddenly had mixed motives precisely because I would be caught. Deprived of the liberty to disobey, I made no moral progress. So now that they are back off, I’m free to be good for the sake of being good again. This is truly a selfish benefit.

Of course, the selfish cost of such moral development is that I’m again afraid of collisions from the fools around me. The question is which benefit would I prefer? In this case, safety, quite frankly. That’s the one you go for when everyone else around you is a dangerous child.