Word: scofflaws
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ways of bikers. In Los Angeles, state and county planners are even contemplating a 2 1/2-mile-long overhead bikeway that would rise above the congested streets around UCLA. But the real culprit on American roads, as conspicuous among cars, cabs and trucks as among cyclists, is an arrogant, scofflaw spirit that sends vehicles -- those with four as well as two wheels -- streaking through red lights and stop signs, just as it tempts pedestrians into habitual jaywalking...
...most flagrant scofflaw of them all is the red-light runner. The flouting of stop signals has got so bad in Boston that residents tell an anecdote about a cabby who insists that red lights are "just for decoration." The power of the stoplight to control traffic seems to be waning everywhere. In Los Angeles, red-light running has become perhaps the city's most common traffic violation. In New York City, going through an intersection is like Russian roulette. Admits Police Commissioner Robert J. McGuire: "Today it's a 50-50 toss-up as to whether people...
...scofflaw spirit is pervasive. It is not really surprising when schools find, as some do, that children frequently enter not knowing some of the basic rules of living together. For all their differences, today's scofflaws are of a piece as a symptom of elementary social demoralization-the loss by individuals of the capacity to govern their own behavior in the interest of others...
...Wagon: "Lawbreaking proved to be not painful, not even uncomfortable, but, in a mild and perfectly safe way, exhilarating." People wiped out Prohibition at last not only because of the alcohol issue but because scofflawry was seriously undermining the authority and legitimacy of government. Ironically, today's scofflaw spirit, whatever its undetermined origins, is being encouraged unwittingly by government at many levels. The failure of police to enforce certain laws is only the surface of the problem; they take their mandate from the officials and constituents they serve. Worse, most state legislatures have helped subvert popular compliance with...
...most disquieting thing about the scofflaw spirit is its extreme infectiousness. Only a terminally foolish society would sit still and allow it to spread indefinitely...