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Gareth Morgan - Personal Liberty and National Well-Being |
Motorist behaviour in the US – the home of the automobile – has been a revelation to us. While the traffic tends to move a lot faster than is permitted in New Zealand – for example it’s not unusual when travelling at 100kph, to be passed by 18-wheeler lorries doing 125kph – it is infinitely more courteous. This accords with our experience in many other countries where the aggression of drivers is far lower than it is at home.
Trying to get to the bottom of why this is so, we come up with the same answer every time. There is far less regulation of driver behaviour in most countries compared to New Zealand. Drivers are more responsible for their own actions and dependent upon the courtesy of others. Rather than relying on a rule to determine how to behave, it’s co-operation between drivers that rules.
Driver empowerment works – it is a clever discretion by the rule-makers. Regulatory latitude enables a “treat others, as you expect to be treated yourself” ethos to prevail. For example, in the US there are a lot more uncontrolled intersections – without lights, Give Way signs or roundabouts. So at a four-way intersection the convention is that the vehicle that’s first to the intersection is given the right-of-way, the second vehicle goes next, … and so on.
This then is a sort of enforced courtesy – the system simply cannot function if a code of behaviour isn’t followed. Drivers have no choice but to make decisions themselves. And surprise, surprise – when given this responsibility people respond positively and a general code of courtesy is underwritten. There is no need for a rule for every situation – courtesy covers most.
But it’s better than this. Courtesy is infectious and affects every situation drivers encounter. For example if our lead bike comes out of a byway on to the highway and the traffic density doesn’t provide room for the second bike to follow immediately, then the traffic automatically stops and you’re waved through. Imagine that happening in NZ – held-up drivers would blast their horns in anger!
Our regulators need to learn from this – stifling over-regulation as prevails nowadays in New Zealand, leads to people moronically playing to the rules and regulations, having lost any empowerment or discretion. A society loses a lot as a result of over-regulation or proliferation of petty rules, and that is because people lose the skills that freedom to make decisions, foster. Outlawing discretion – the norm nowadays in our own little bureaucratic corner of the world – takes away from the individual opportunities to self-regulate their and others’ behaviour. And with that a vital entrepreneurial skill-set is lost.
The consequences include the pathetic outcome that when faced with a situation for which the rules have yet to be written, people act increasingly in a selfish manner, as they’ve become conditioned to playing strictly by the rules and had bred out of them the value of selflessness. Clever regulation – something that has passed New Zealand by – would specifically foster and promote situations where people do have to co-operate in order to progress. Rather, we do what has become the norm in New Zealand, just write another rule. Re-writing the road rules would be a great place to start. The US road code has fewer rules, far higher fines – and of course there is also the fear of being sued.
I suggest it is no coincidence that without doubt US society is the most polite we have encountered. In the six weeks we’ve been here I haven’t heard one swear word – and we’ve enjoyed the full range of company. In New Zealand you just need to turn on the television to get your fill of expletives. Courtesy permeates all walks of life – it is worth asking why it no longer does in New Zealand.
While I’m on it – in the US if you are at a red-light but you can turn to the right (it would be to the left in our case) without danger you can progress. Another example – except in built-up areas, a speed limit can be exceeded by up to 15kph without you being at risk of getting a ticket. So if the speed limit is 110kph say, you can happily travel at 125kph. We wear our motorcycle helmets most of the time even though it is not the law in most States, but it sure is great being able to shed them every now and then at our own discretion. Remember when it was like that in New Zealand? That was before we sank into this swill of smothering maternalistic supervision that holds, “If it moves, regulate it!”
It is inconsistent to expect a society to produce innovative and creative human capital when daily life – dominated by life on the road, in the workplace, the shops and your neighbourhood – is so regulated that the freedom and curiosity of children is squashed, the discretion of adults to make decisions is severely curbed, and politicians are captive to organised lobbies when they should always be guided solely by what is in the national interest. I was impressed by Helen Clark’s decision to ride roughshod over the telecoms commissar the other day but so long as New Zealand in the main, cocoons itself within this triad of defensive norms, it is hard to imagine it recovering competitiveness in a globalising world.
That our share of world trade continues to slip decade after decade, reflects this decay. As an economy – which is just an aggregate of human endeavour – we aren’t doing that well. Perhaps a starting point is a Constitution and within that a Bill of Rights so as the curious, innovative and empowered individual is no longer smothered in New Zealand, the regulatory canopy is rolled back, and our army of bureaucrats put to more productive endeavour.
Their courtesy is the key to our survival...
...otherwise like this armadillo, we're just another statistic
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