CarrotsOrSticks

Do you prefer being punished for your misdemeanors or rewarded for your accomplishments? How could anyone pick the former when the latter is clearly more desirable? Wouldn’t it be better to reward so called socially responsible behavior rather than punish those who are not followers of the politically correct responses?

In the UK the politically correct thought police, otherwise known as our government, both local and national, confront us with punishment rather than inducement.

How else can we describe laws and regulations that will fine people up to £110 ($220) for overfilling your refuse bin?

Or in another part of the country, £1,000 ($2,000) for failing to properly sort your refuse as proscribed.

This madness doesn’t stop with rubbish, but goes on to charge trucks huge fines for entering the low emission zone around London. On top of this, if you have a bigger engine car you have to pay a much higher car tax. To add misery to this charge the government, in its infinite wisdom has backdated this particular legislation to include cars that are up to 6 years old.

These are sure to be ineffective green taxes on our population. You can go on but you have probably got the message.

What would happen if you were to reward the population for doing what’s commonly considered desirable, instead of punishing them for not doing so? An example of this exists in Germany where there are huge schemes in which bottle returns are really well rewarded and as a consequence almost everyone makes sure they do it. That’s one problem the Germans simply made disappear.

In parts of the USA there are payments made to residents for sorting their garbage rather than penalties levied on those that don’t do so. The companies who administer these schemes profit from running these schemes. These are schemes in which no one loses and everyone gains. Perhaps that’s why Britain’s local government doesn’t go down this enlightened path, they’re basically too socialist and petty minded.

Another myth perpetrated in the UK is that the lower the road speed limit the less accidents and fatalities. I have driven in Germany where there are many sections of roads without speed limits and the figures for accidents and fatalities are very similar to those in the UK. Yet in the UK you can’t drive anywhere for more than a short distance without car speed cameras automatically monitoring your car’s speed; why?

I have another idea for these bureaucrats who try to make parking as miserable as possible for us all. In every town in the UK there are parking charges of varying sizes almost everywhere you park your car. This has caused possibly irreversible damage to the small local shopping located in the old town center. This type of shopping has been largely replaced by the out of town supermarkets and shopping malls. One of their great advantages is their convenience, particularly the ease of parking at no charge. You could easily combine the benefits. Charge the highly profitable supermarkets a car parking tax for each space at the mall so that all of the spaces in the town could be made free of charge to the public.

Remember that from today onwards, August 4th, if you are caught in the UK, speaking on your mobile phone (not on a hands free system) whilst driving and having had an accident where someone is killed, you can be arrested, and if, at your trial you are convicted you could serve up to 7 years in jail! The regular sentence for using your mobile phone remains, a 3-point fine on your license and a very hefty financial penalty. This is one occasion in which we can all surely agree that the punishment does fit the crime.