Rules are necessary. Without them, shared life would depend on force, cunning or the mood of whoever happens to be in charge. Precisely because I think rules matter, I am surprised when they are applied as though their only purpose were to exist. Attention stops at the box to tick, the hour printed on the sign, the document to produce. We stop asking what problem the rule was meant to solve.
An empty square and an expired hour
I remember a square where parking was limited to one hour. It seems sensible to me: it prevents a few drivers from occupying the same places indefinitely and gives many people a turn. On that day, however, the square was empty. My car remained there for about three hours, and I received a fine. I had exceeded the limit; that is true. But whose place had I taken? At that moment, nobody’s.
I am not saying an officer should guess how many motorists might arrive later, or that an empty square gives me permission to ignore the sign. A rule must be enforceable by criteria that are equal for everyone. I am asking, instead, whether those who made a rule should return to the facts and revise it when it repeatedly produces results far removed from its purpose.
A journey paid for but not proved
On another occasion I had bought a train ticket but forgotten it. To the inspector, being unable to show it meant travelling without a ticket. I understood the problem: there must be a way to verify a passenger’s right to travel, or anyone could claim to have paid. Yet it still seemed wrong to treat two different situations as identical: the person who never bought a ticket and the person who did but cannot prove it at that moment.
The answer is not to believe every claim. Where the type of ticket permits it, the answer might be a later check, identification or a proportionate way to put matters right. Actual procedures vary by service and ticket. The principle that matters to me is making room to establish the difference rather than erasing it for convenience.
Three hours paid for and ten minutes late
At a paid car park I paid for three hours and returned after three hours and ten minutes. I was asked to pay as though I owed the whole day. Again, the expiry was real: those ten minutes had not been paid for. But the preceding three hours had. Paying for the missing time, or facing a proportionate consequence, would have made sense to me. Treating what I had already paid as though it had vanished made me feel that the aim was no longer to account for parking time, but to punish a mistake without considering its size.
I do not claim every car park has the same tariff, or that the amount requested was necessarily contrary to the applicable rules. I am describing the gap I felt between what had happened and the response: ten minutes became a whole day, while three paid hours seemed to count for nothing.
A statement that cannot promise the future
When a home is sold, a condominium statement about payments and any pending disputes can help the buyer. It records what is known at that point. Yet I once read a document which, after confirming that no outstanding payments or known disputes appeared, warned that expenses arising later might fall on the new owner, who could then seek reimbursement from the previous one. After the requests, delays and costs involved, I wondered what reassurance the document had really given me.
The honest answer is: limited reassurance, not none. No administrator can guarantee that the future holds no expenses or issues unknown today. Nor can a comforting sentence erase the financial relationship between the former owner, the new owner and the condominium. The statement is useful when it says precisely what was checked and what remains uncertain. It becomes frustrating when it is presented as a definitive clearance, then filled with qualifications that seem to empty it of meaning.
Proof and thresholds: two more examples
I also think of two hypothetical situations, not events that happened to me. In the first, a person has a valid disability parking permit and genuinely qualifies for it, but forgets to display it visibly in the car. An officer cannot see into their bag: displaying the permit makes the entitlement immediately verifiable and helps prevent abuse. Yet if the authorization can be checked afterwards, it would be reasonable to provide a procedure that distinguishes forgetfulness from parking without any entitlement. I am not saying a fine would automatically be unlawful. I am asking that the system establish, when possible, what was already true before the inspection.
For the second example, imagine financial support available only below a given income threshold, with no gradual reduction. A family whose income exceeds the threshold by one euro loses the entire benefit; another, almost identical family, keeps it. A limit is needed when resources are finite, but such a sharp step may work against the purpose of the support. A gradual taper requires more care when designing the rule, not more indulgence when enforcing it. It shows why proportionality should be built in beforehand, rather than improvised at the counter.
The danger of leaving exceptions to individuals
I could stop here and say, “We need common sense.” That would be too easy. One inspector’s common sense may feel like fairness to me and unfairness to someone who observed the limit. If everyone invents exceptions on the spot, two people in the same situation can be treated differently. Applied too freely, a rule can lose the predictability it was meant to provide.
So I am not asking those who enforce rules to disobey them whenever a case seems unfair to me. I am asking those who write the rules and procedures to take responsibility: state the purpose, provide practical ways to prove the facts, make consequences proportionate and check whether everyday enforcement achieves the intended result. Those applying a rule should also be able to explain not only what it requires, but why it was designed that way and what remedies exist.
Respect is not an automatic gesture
Citizens have a part to play: read the sign, bring the ticket, watch the time and ask for documents before signing. I cannot expect every lapse of mine to be excused. But respecting rules does not mean giving up the right to assess them. If a sanction no longer distinguishes actual harm from a formal error, or if a required document does not really help someone decide, asking a question is not trying to cheat. It is taking seriously the reason the rule was made.
A good rule should be clear enough not to depend on the mood of the person enforcing it, and intelligent enough not to forget the people it addresses. Its strength lies not only in being obeyed. It lies in deserving obedience.
What I would like to leave my children
I hope you will respect rules without turning them into idols, and challenge what does not work without looking for shortcuts only for yourselves. When a rule seems absurd, first ask what problem it was meant to solve. If its aim is just, look for a fairer way to achieve it. If one day you write a procedure or enforce one, remember that there is a person behind every box to tick and, behind every exception granted, another person who expects fairness. Responsibility is not choosing between the letter of the rule and common sense: it is working to bring them together as often as possible.
Papy