Our conceit about speeding drivers
Posted by Christie Malry on January 6, 2011 at 10:26 am
Most people have been horrified at the news of a kindly gentleman, who warned other drivers of a speed trap, being fined in the courts for obstructing the police. Perhaps you have been warned of speed traps in this way before. Maybe you've even helped others.
So imagine some other (made up) scenarios:
A friend of yours works at HMRC. He lends you his USB stick. You find a folder containing a list of names and addresses of suspected tax avoiders that HMRC will be investigating. Do you ring them up to warn them of the investigation?
Or, perhaps another friend of yours invites you round to his house. He works for the Professional Oversight Board. While he's getting you a drink, you spot a note among his papers outlining the audits of major firms that are due for inspection. Do you take a copy of the list with your mobile and send it to the Big Four?
Now, I may be wrong, but I suspect people would answer emphatically "no" to both. So what is different about speeding drivers that makes us sympathetic to their law breaking compared to tax cheats or bad auditors? 3,000 people die on Britain's roads every year in "accidents", virtually all of which wouldn't happen if drivers followed the Highway Code. Tax avoidance and dodgy auditing, as far as I'm aware, never killed anyone.
Seriously, what's the difference?
Written on my Android mobile phone. Article may be edited later.
Really good point; I suspect the "3,000 people die ... *virtually all* of which wouldn't happen" is open to debate, though I'm sure many lives would be saved.
It's a fair cop. Although, the left wing commentariat (not meant to be derogatory, but so you know who I mean) seem to believe you can reduce both tax avoidance and audit failure to nil. I'm being a bit unfair and applying their level of optimism.
Big difference.
In both your examples, the transgression has already been spotted by the authorities. Passing on the information is therefore of less use.
In the driving scenario, the transgression has not yet been spotted. That difference matters, 'cos what the warning does is in effect say "you are breaking the law. If you keep going, you *will* get caught. My advice is to slow down".
Indeed, at the margin the warning could arguably reduce the incidence of traffic accidents in the stratech of road between the warning and the police, creating incremental benefits to society as well as the driver who has been warned. That's not obstructing the police, that's helping them (if you assume the objective of the police was to make roads safer for all users).
I understand your line of reasoning, but I don't buy it. In all three cases, the authorities haven't yet caught anybody but they have a good idea of where to look to catch people breaking the rules. In each case someone seeks to obstruct the authorities' ability to do that.
Now, I know that some people are so libertarian that they think this is a good thing. But it seems we want the authorities to stop (some) tax avoiders and bad auditors, but not speeding drivers. That's stupid.
The difference might be easier to spot if you use the active voice,
In your two hypotheticals, the authoritiies have reasonable suspision with regard to identified people/firms regarding their actions in the past. In the speeding example, the authorities have no identified people/firms, just a heuristic expectation regarding likely actions in the very near future.
A better comparision would be this - should a tax advisor mention/warn/stop a client from engageing or continuing with an existing scheme of affairs which may well attract an HMRC investigation, even although such an investigation had not yet begun? Of course they should - its better for everyone concerned. Just like the speeding case.
Put it in the extreme: if everyone exerted peer pressure like in my example above or the speeding example, would we have a more or less civic society? What if everyone took privelidged information and forwarded it without permission, often in breach or privacy laws?
The analogies fail.
Correct ones would be: you see some people beating someone up. You remonstrate with them to stop breaking the law. Or you see someone nipping out of a window with a DVD under their arm and you shout "stop thief!". Or you find that onoe of your mates is fiddling the books and you tell him that he really ought to stop doing that.
The difference in each case is that in your analogies you are aiding someone in getting away with a crime already committed.
In mine, and in warning people to stop breaking the speed limit, you are urging people not to break the law at all.