I was watching the film "Bowling for Columbine" last night which is about gun control and violence in the US. It is more of a documentary than a movie, and an interesting one at that. It basically rips apart all the standard reasons people give for the high levels of gun violence (movies, video games, violent history), and ends up resting on the fact that the media in the States is all about increasing peoples' fear of each other. This leads most to feel that they require a gun for their protection, and in some cases causes them to become [homicidally] paranoid of other people (especially fear of the Afro-American and Hispanic population, as these are played up in such TV shows). On my daily route to work I usually do speeds which I shouldn't, and I have an increasing paranoia that I'm 'being watched' by just about every car that I pass. I'm not so fussed about marked police cars, as I can spot them a mile away; nor am I so concerned about road-side laser traps, as that's fair play. However, I am concerned about video cars. The last thing that I want to happen is to overtake an unmarked police car, and then be filmed as I put distance between us, only to receive a NIP (or equiv.) through the post. Now to my knowledge, there has been no increase in police presence on the roads in my part of the country. The only thing that has changed is the amount of shows on TV such as Police, Camera, Action!, and other tacky US and UK 'police' shows, which show people being bitch-slapped for doing 'bad speeds' on the roads. I figure that these shows are responsible for my increased paranoia, as I'm doing nothing different to how I've ridden for the past few years. As an aside, what is the police procedure when videoing you speeding from a car? Will they always catch up to you and stop you, or can they just record for a bit, and send you a mail-order bitch-slapping?
