Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Following rules

Am I the only one who believes that rules are there to be followed? If we don't need to obey, then let's drop the rules. I've heard that "rules are meant to be broken," yadda yadda, but no, dang it, that's wrong.

My community has a pool. There is a set of rules posted by the pool and on homeowners' key holders. Just about every time I've had an occasion to visit the pool (mostly when my grandkids are visiting), there are folks there who are rule-breaking. Now, if we don't want to obey certain rules, then let's get rid of them. But putting up a list, then disregarding it, is goofy.

How about the driving rules? How often do you see someone turn without signaling, pull in the lane ahead of you before he can see you in his mirror, or use the turn lane as a way to pull into traffic? Are there appropriate rules about these things for a reason? If so, they should be followed. If not, then driver's ed teachers can give up trying to teach them.

Yes, there are dumb rules, and we often follow these because the consequences are too unpleasant not to--like having to take off flip flops or scarves when going through airport security. What's the danger there? I believe in sensible rules to keep things safe and somewhat orderly. But rather than have a million rules people ignore, let's just have a few good ones and
try to follow them.



6 comments:

Great Grandma Lin said...

love your cartoon, how true...

Kay said...

Sigh... so true.
My husband was just complaining about people not following rules and courtesies while driving. His pet peeve today was keeping the intersection open. That is a rule but somehow people get so impatient they drive right up and block the intersection; same goes for several stop signs in our area. It's no wonder that lately we've had three pedestrian deaths while they were IN the CROSSWALK.

Jean said...

This was one of my pet peeves while teaching, and I'm not referring to students breaking the rules....Each year at the opening of school, we teachers would review the basic rules of the school: no food in classrooms, etc. And each year some teachers would flagrantly ignore these rules, allowing students to come to class with sodas, potato chips, candy bars..., etc. This made things difficult for those of us who believed the few rules of our school were there for a purpose

Anonymous said...

I think the problem is that many people these days think the rules apply to everybody but them.

Great cartoon.

I like your blog.

Sharon said...

You said it.

I love your cartoon - isn't that sad? I just read about an 8 year old boy who has been getting searched at airports since he was two years old because his name is the same as one on the "no fly" list.

Mare said...

Some things never change. People break the rules when no one is looking. Loved the cartoon!