#9 Do the Math

So I’m driving down the road the other day and this bus pulls in front of me. It’s one of the big yellow school ones. And I notice a sign on the bumper, since at that moment the bumper is 3 inches from my own (this “don’t interfere with busses law” has even the part-time school mom bus drivers a little cocky). The sign says: “Illegal to pass, $327 fine.” Or 357, or 377 or something like that. The point is, it’s not an even figure, like say, 350 or 400. And I had to ask: Why? Litter fines are the same way, 188 dollars for littering. Again, I ask plaintively: Why? It makes no sense that I can figure. I’m guessing the legislature or the Highway Patrol or someone sits down and says “X” infraction is “Y” bad, let’s nail ‘em for “Z” dollars. Does someone else come along and say well it’s not that bad, give em a 17% discount? I mean, I would think that since you’re setting fines you could just set them wherever the heck you wanted. Round up to the next hundred for gosh sake. If nothing else, you may even increase the deterrent factor. 400 dollars is a heck of a lot more meaningful to me than 377. Not to mention the math factor. When I go through a roadway construction zone and the sign says: “fines double in work zones” I get so confused with the math I nearly do crash. Let’s see, 2 times a $188 litter fine is, um... Okay, double a $377 bus-passing fine is, um... It’s just too confusing.
It’s like our drinking limit. Point 0 8 percent. How the heck is any drunk going to be able to figure out what that is? 100th of .08. Which is like 8 hundredths already. 100th of 8 hundredths. Right. Just say 4 beers. Or 2 wines, or whatever. Maybe the bigger people get cheated a bit and you have lots more short skinny drunks on the road but it’ll all even out.
And another thing. Psychological. It’s not a very good idea to have a sticker on the back of a school bus that says “passing is illegal.” Think of another word. Don’t we want our school kids to like the idea of passing.
America, ya gotta love it.