Some people would say that a doorman or security guard is there to keep people out, to manage the door and/or for crowd control. That makes him the law. He only has the power to say no. Another way to look at it is to make sure that the person at the door lets the right people in, with the power to say yes. That makes him contribute to success. Same job, different definition, different outcome.

The same logic could (should) be applied to law enforcement vehicles. As a recent upgrade to police cars in Montreal, the red and blue lights on top are barely visible to other cars. You only really see them when they’re turned on. If drivers can’t recognize the cop car from a distance, they won’t slow down to avoid getting caught speeding, running a red light, right? This way, more people are caught and fined. This, sadly, fixes the wrong problem. By making it harder to see police cars, people are more likely to maintain  their bad driving habits, and will be caught and fined. Arguably, the target should be to discourage these habits – by doing the opposite, and making patrol cars AS VISIBLE AS POSSIBLE.  Have you ever ran a red light when you could see a cop car? Do you roll at twice the speed limit when you see them with the radar? Of course not. Because you KNOW you’ll be caught…

Sadly, (and pathetically), in the second case, I don’t think the real objective was to reduce the quantity of traffic tickets handed out in Montreal…

There, I said it.