Smile, we'll send you the bill

For four years in the late nineties I lived in a very beautiful section of Bavaria, in southern Germany. Amazingly, during that entire time I received only one speeding ticket. I don’t remember the details, but it was easily dispensed with a DM 50,00 visit to the local magistrate. They had me going X plus too much in an X zone and there was nothing I could do, because they had my picture. At least I assume they did—I never saw a copy, but either way, if Germans tell you you were going too fast, you were going too fast. Don’t make waves in Utopia.

I remember thinking how much more convenient it was, and safer. No stopping on the side of the freeway, no awkward encounter with a cop who must statistically assume that you have the will and means to kill him on the spot. No silly court procedure and no assumed innocence—road infractions result in a fine, you infracted, here’s your fine.

If the local government wants your money, they’re going to use speeding laws to take it either way—with a court procedure and a lot of paperwork or without it. Since Germany doesn’t have a Fourth Amendment, they can indulge in this efficient practice without the citizenry getting too ruffled about it. Here in America, we might have some difficulties, but stuff like this may be the least of motorists’ problems.

In a society increasingly hysterical over environmental issues, hostile to personal independence and complicated by legal wrangling, how much longer do you think they’re going to let us drive our own cars on the roads?

--gh