The Eye in the Sky

Traffic Cameras:

The Eye in the Sky 

We now see cameras to enforce traffic lights.  Last year alone, about 22% of traffic accents and 800 deaths came from running stop lights.  The evidence is in that the cameras do compel a higher percentage of adherence, since the actual number of tickets goes down where they are used.  We also know that the cameras are a tremendous source of revenue.  I will leave it to you as whether these lights came about to save lives or get people to pay up.  All I know is that they have worked on me. I find myself glancing up to recall which intersections have the sky high cops. 

For some, the cameras mean a “surveillance society,” big brother and sister monitoring the play ground. For others, how do you find this kind of ticket in court? How would you prove the camera malfunctioned? For others, what’s the big deal—just stop at the lights, and you won’t get ticketed. 

 

A while back, the movie came out—Defending your Life, with Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks.  What would your life look like if you had to watch replays of it?  Or, what would your life look like if you KNEW there would be replays of your life.  Cameras in the traffic of your life, so to speak, from which to judge you?  Maybe we would all be neurotics. Or, maybe as we approached the intersections of crucial choices, we just might stop and reconsider what we were about to do. 

From a personal standpoint, the traffic cameras injected more intentional driving on my part. I consider what I am about to do at the intersection.  No more automatic pilot.  That’s a very good, positive analogy—rather than getting caught—for making purposeful choices.  With all the people I listen to—this much I know—there are a lot of emotional, personal wrecks from just not being intentional about what is done and how it is done. 

The unexamined life is not worth living.

 

Socrates, in Plato, Dialogues, Apology
Greek philosopher in Athens (469 BC - 399 BC)