"You swerved in your lane": the subtle tyranny of minor traffic laws

An investigator and ethicist examines how an overabundance of laws flips the balance of power between Hobbesian safety and Lockean liberty.

J. Steven Bromwich

[Disclaimer: This article is not intended as legal advice.]

When mere driving becomes “reasonable suspicion”

It’s 10:00 P.M. You leave a local bar and grill after having dinner with friends. You are completely sober after having only one beer over three hours. You just want to get home.

You start your old car and pull onto the road. Low-level anxiety kicks in when you look in the rearview mirror. A police cruiser is following you.

You make a turn. The cruiser makes a turn. You make another. They keep pace. When the blue lights flash, it isn’t because you committed a crime; it’s because in a system with too many laws, the state is never short of reasons to stop you. “You swerved in your lane,” the deputy says to you when he reaches your car.

Police only need a low-threshold called “reasonable suspicion” to stop a driver, which is where “swerving in your lane,” a license plate light being out, and the like, are intended to increase opportunities for stops to look for bigger crimes.

The 20-minute ordeal of anxiety, questioning, a breathalyzer, and wasted time are not random bad luck. It is how modern governmental authority exerts power over the individual.

When laws become too numerous, even absurd, innocence ceases to be a legal shield. Your everyday rights to be “left alone” become the sacrifice for “safety” and “order.”

Endless laws; endless opportunities

The old legal maxim “ignorance of the law is no excuse” seems absurd considering the massive number of laws and ordinances, in the thousands in most states and the tens or hundreds of thousands at the federal level. The state tells citizens they must be familiar with all these laws. The advantage clearly rests with the state.

The multiplication of laws is intended to give police reasonable suspicion for stops and probable cause for arrests. Those in power, even if well-intentioned, can easily become overzealous when they are armed with this kind of authority. The multiplication of laws, which an average citizen cannot possibly memorize, gives law enforcement, prosecutors and judges incredible power over citizens.

In one jurisdiction where I lived bicyclists were routinely stopped by police in broad daylight for not having a bike light attached to their bikes. Often, the police are looking for something else, and the lack of a bicycle light gives them a reason to stop, ask, and look.

Safety vs. liberty

Thomas Hobbes, a political philosopher, argued that citizens surrender absolute freedom to a sovereign in exchange for safety and order. The example of the bicyclist reveals a mutation of the Hobbesian contract. The state has manufactured pretexts that violate the rights of innocent individuals to seek out higher-level wrong doing.

The bicycle light stop enables an identification check, a smell test for alcohol, observation for drug paraphernalia, and the like. Innocent bicyclists end up being harrassed by the state’s dragnet.

John Locke argued that government exists to protect our natural rights of life, liberty, and property. The framers of the U.S. Constitution gravitated toward Locke. Being caught up in a dragnet of laws is not protecting liberty; it is consuming it.

Many of us are willing to sacrifice the least amount of liberty necessary to attain safety and order. The temptation of state power, however, is to gradually expand itself and erode liberty. Citizens, too, are tempted to clamor for more laws as the fear of crime rises.

Crime, power, and ethics

In subsequent articles 1690 Media will investigate and analyze a wide range of cases and issues involving crime, power, and ethics. We will tell stories, unpack policy, and contextualize with historical precedents.

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J. Steven Bromwich is a criminal defense investigator and ethicist, with advanced training in history and diplomatic studies. He writes about culture, crime, and human nature to help readers navigate modern problems through historical perspective and first principles.