Society has rules, protocols, norms to provide order and predictability. Members of the society change such rules according to the need of the time and situation. Also, behavioural norms evolve through the actions of people and institutions.
Sometimes that is reinforced by regulation.
For example, during the Blitz in WWII there was a concern Britain would suffer night air bombing attacks which would cause large numbers of casualties and massive destruction. In order to make it difficult for bombers to identify areas of population at night, blackout regulations were introduced. Try as I might, I could not find any record of objection and or social commentary about rights being restricted.
Consider Naturalism, where believers find clothes restricting, hot and uncomfortable. They just don’t like having clothes on. In itself not a big issue, however their interest is restricted to home and clubs. Even there they have rules. For example, an apron is necessary when cooking a BBQ and safety gear was needed when trimming trees around the club. They are also sensible not to over-expose themselves to the sun. However, if they turned up naked at the Supermarket to do their shopping, they would probably be arrested for indecent exposure. Try as I might, I could not find any record of objection and or social commentary about their rights being restricted.
Road traffic speeds is a current ‘hot’ topic and a possible indication of where we are going to go with COVID. Despite a range of limits applied across our road system, the old default of 50km/h in urban areas and 100km/h on the open road is pretty much ingrained in many of our minds. Through a combination of education and policing, the NZ road toll has exhibited a downward trend since the late 80s through to 2010, attributed to factors such as
• Reduction in drink driving
• Improvements in vehicle safety
• More wearing seatbelts
• Hazard mitigation on roads
• Reduction in speed limits
Regardless, in the last decade, each year, between 253 – 373 people were killed and 11,219 – 14,031 people injured. In 2017 the social cost of road deaths and injuries was more than $4.8b. Social cost is a figure that looks at how a serious crash impacts the driver and their family. It includes loss of life or reduction in the quality of life and the loss of ability to work or be employed. Medical & legal costs, and damage to vehicles is also factored in. Add in non-injury crashes, and the social cost rises to $5.6b. This doesn’t include emergency medical treatment funded through ACC, but when factored in brings the total cost to more than $6b.
In December 2019 the Government released the ‘Road to Zero’ traffic Strategy which adopts the vision of a New Zealand where no-one is killed or seriously injured in road crashes. And that is creating some push back as people object to the attempts to slow us down, save lives and reduce chances of injury (not to mention reducing the whole cost).
People are demanding their ‘freedom’ from COVID restrictions, campaigning that the PM must go, claiming the experts are conspiring, defying travel restrictions, and making a conscious decision to transport the virus to others.
We have been defying restrictions on our driving speeds, (paying $272million between March 2019 & March 2020 for 2.9 million traffic offences), and making a conscious decision to put our own, let alone others, lives at risk.
Standby for the predicted explosion of COVID and learn to be very, very careful who you trust to be in contact with.
You also might find the following an interesting read on informal rule of law.
