[Dangerous Doug]

Trying to make a right turn in Los Gatos today. Left turners from oncoming traffic are parading around the corner. Their light turns red; mine green. Little old lady in a Buick comes swinging around through the red light.

Not a cop in sight.

Ingrained driving habit, I'm sure.

Could she afford the ticket? I don't care. Adjacent to me was someone getting ready to cross the street. If they weren't paying attention, they would have been hit. Had neither of us been paying attention, the pedestrian would have ended up between the Buick and my Jeep.

Humans do stupid things. Their behavior needs to be regulated---to some degree. Do we enact laws to regulate every behavior? No, that would be Talibanesque. Do we suspend all laws so that people can exercise perfect free will? No, innocent people would be hurt. In fact, sometimes we need to regulate behavior because humans also do stupid things to themselves (like, get addicted to drugs).

Anyhow, it's a balance. Like I said, we've all had our run-ins with overzealous peace officers. However, these examples are not the norm. Most peace officers are rational, reasonable people. If you detect an attitude, it's probably because he's still a little pissed from the last scumbag he's had to deal with.

DD