Of course licensing will have a positive effect; (though not all licensed car drivers seem to fear this eventuality - I posit the "percieved liklihood of consequences" is lower on the open water than on the roads, where a police car may be hiding around any corner. Lower real fear of being caught will engender higher rates of beer-boobing-with-impugnity.)



My question goes to the cost in freedoms lost and annoyances engendered, fees collected and officious officials put on the payroll.



I bethought myself of an unlikely, utopian even, solution which would ratchet up the "percieved liklihood of consequences" more than the real likelihood of the costs above. I still maintain it is more effective to make people expect very likely correction than to expect unlikely-but-horrendous consequences. If the latter affected most of us, we wouldn't fly airplanes, drive cars etc etc. Yet the very-likely-but-only-mildly-painful consequences of catching a bee in cupped hands is quite convincing to just about anybody. A bit extreme, but it serves to illustrate the trendline.



That in a nutshell is what's wrong with our entire criminal justice system - huge punishments almost entirely unlikely for a first or second offender. Peole start com;laining about anew kind of infraction, our legislators just proudly pass a bill to increaase the penalty - which in the short term is cost-free to the state. $500 fine for dropping a coffe cup, and the road is littered with them. But if Mrs. Grundy on the corner could snap a poloroid of you and cause you to spend an afternoon cleaning up, with no chance to appeal, (except "mistaken identity") that road would be pristine, one way or another. Swift and certain is way more usefull than unlikely but earthshaking.



But like I said, we Americans don't wish to live in a police state, crawling with people eyeballing us for infractions, so balance is in order.