When a person planning on turning right arrives at the traffic light and its signal is red, the person must stop. If no traffic is coming, the person may turn right, despite the fact that the light was red.
Right on red.
Today I came up to the intersection where I turn to go home from work. The lights were out and there were two sheriff cars with lights on. The sheriff people were outside of the car directing traffic. My side was stopped.
I could see that there was no traffic coming. My side was stopped, effectively a red light. I was thinking about the situation. Should I go? Can I go? Will I get pulled over? Could they get to their cars fast enough to pull me over? Do they leave their cars running when they have them sitting by the road with lights flashing? If they don't, do police have extra batteries so they don't need to be jump-started by a taxpayer? Wouldn't that be strange? And possibly dangerous in so litigious a culture as mine.
In a shockingly level-headed decision, I decided not to go through the "red light". Still, the question intrigues me. What if I had gone? Would it have been legal? Would I be locked in jail with drug dealers and child abusers and all manner of badly behaved citizens? Would I start a reading program right then and there? "Rosie was here," I'd say. "Are-oh-ess-eye-eee." Oh and here's one we can all related to. 'Officer Troy is an evil bitch.' Notice how the C in Officer sounds like ess."
No. I suspect the sheriff's department would recognize me for the delicate princess I am. They'd keep me in another place, far from these hooligans. They'd probably send me to the Hilton.
hubris
This assumption is, of course, the hubris of the privileged. If I know that, is it still hubris? I bet it is.
In a book I read a few months ago (Sir Dougg purchased this particularly piquant volume for me), entitled The Dreamers, there was a group of people who were on an island that was being taken over by the Germans during World War Two. There were five or six (I am not near the book, but have annotated it [really, I have] for your future enjoyment) people who were all English speakers (if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us) who were the Resistance on that wee island.
Apparently speaking a language good enough for Jesus goes to their heads and they act thoughtlessly, endangering the careers and safety of people in their village. They assume rules don't apply to them, that they won't be treated like common islanders.
Hubris, my friends. Hubris and folly bring them to an unhappy conclusion that they overestimated the value of being a princess.
the moral of the story
Don't turn right on man. Only turn right on red.