Law vs. Justice

On my way home from the airport after my trip to Taiwan, I was five minutes from home when I bumped the car in front of me. The traffic was stopped at an intersection, the light turned green, everyone started moving, I glanced down for half a second, and when I looked up, everyone was stopped. Oops! I bumped the car. More than just a tap, unfortunately, but still pretty minor. This is what it looked like (minus a license plate, which I've whited out).

Can you see the damage? If not, be patient. You will in a minute. The driver was an older fellow who wanted his car fixed (I can't blame him; it was a nice car), so he called the police. We pulled off to the side to let traffic flow and waited. The officer was very nice, but apologetically explained that he had to issue me a citation for "Following Too Closely" even though it was obvious it was an extremely minor accident. He couldn't tell me how much the fine would be, but told me who to call to find out. I found out a few days later - $195.

Wow; I couldn't see the justice in that. I had done minor damage to someone else's private property. I have an insurance policy for things like that; I pay my premiums on time; and the insurance company covered the cost of the damage. No one was hurt; no damage to public property was done; and we impeded traffic only minimally. I couldn't see what right the city had to force me to pay a fine in addition to taking care of the damages. I still can't, by the way, but I wanted to set up my reasons for attending my court hearing.

I went to court earlier this week. It was an educational experience for me. I had never been in an active courtroom before. This was only my second citation in my life. I suppose I lead a boring life, but there's the truth. I brought with me pictures of the accident, proof that my insurance company had paid the claim, and even proof of insurance just for kicks. When it was my turn to approach the bench, I spent about two or three minutes talking to the judge, explaining what happened, showing him the pictures, and waiting to see what he would say. He was very kind and seemed to be a fair man. He asked if everyone walked away from the accident. I answered 'yes', handed him the pictures, and he looked at the one above. After about ten seconds, it was clear he couldn't see the damage, so I told him to look at the second picture (below).

A small piece of the bumper was peeled away from the car in the upper left hand corner of the license plate area. My car had only minor scratches on the front bumper. In the end, the judge dismissed the charge, told me it would not be on my record, and charged me court costs. Guess how much. $195. Not much he or I could do, I suppose, but it drove home something I've believed in theory for years - that law and justice are NOT the same thing. He knows the mechanics of the law; I'm quite ignorant of them. I'm confident that he did what he was required to do; the end result still tweaks my internal sense of justice. I'm not upset about it, but I do wish we could have a system of law that aligned well with universal principles of justice. Maybe someday we'll find Utopia, but until then, we'll do the best we can with what we've got. And it's not such a bad system overall ... just not quite perfect.