Driving is a privilege, not a right

Why do drivers here in Ottawa feel they can drive any way they feel like it? The absolute truth is that they are not allowed to. The reason? The Highway Traffic Act. This is a law--not a set of guidelines or recommendations or suggestions, but a set of rules.

It’s been said that it’s the little things that count in life, and this applies when it comes to driving. Some people might think you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff--which, when it comes to driving, includes things like failing to signal, failing to come to a full stop at the stop sign before the stop line, and not giving pedestrians the right-of-way--but I think that’s narrow-minded thinking because it looks at the small stuff as isolated incidents rather than parts of a larger problem. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and “not sweating the small stuff” in this case means ignoring the weakness of the weakest link and hoping it gets stronger on its own. But it will not.

And why? Well, there’s a fundamental reason why we humans went from walking to running to riding horses to driving cars. It’s called human nature. Impatience. Placing your own desires above other people’s needs. Morally, that isn’t right. I can pretty well guarantee you that every traffic accident involves some degree of uncaring on someone’s part. It upsets me when I see a driver not doing everything they should, because it says to me that they’re liable to do the same thing somewhere else--and quite possibly hurt or kill someone in the process without meaning to. Don’t these potential victims deserve to live free of the danger that their very lives could one day be snuffed out? This threat to their safety can only be nipped in the bud at the individual driver level. This is why I seem to be sweating the small stuff, because I see it as links in a chain--and it’s the chain that is the big problem here.

Nor do I believe that police safety blitzes, at least as approached here in Ottawa, are effective enough for this. Here the police announce when the blitzes are going to take place and what they’re going to be watching for. I believe this approach to blitzes is counterproductive, because it conditions the general public to believe they can play cat-and-mouse with the police when the blitzes are not taking place--especially given that I see the police turning a blind eye more often than not. When they do turn a blind eye, it says to me they’re not willing “to serve and protect” on the level that I feel they ideally should. After all, Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” (emphasis mine). When drivers don’t drive properly, I don’t believe that the resultant “small stuff” falls under the definition of “principles of fundamental justice”. Instead, I
believe these drivers are depriving others of “security of the person”. Therein lies the fundamental reason for every traffic accident that has ever occurred.

Driving is, always has been and always will be a privilege, not a right. The Highway Traffic Act was designed to prevent these accidents and these threats to people’s safety. If you get into an accident down the road and someone is killed as a result, what if the person killed is a musician who otherwise would have written the most beautiful piece of music the world has ever heard? Or a doctor who otherwise would have made a scientific discovery that would have shaken the very foundation of medical science? Or a college-level hockey player who otherwise would have had an NHL career far eclipsing Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky combined? What a loss to the world that would be. You never know, do you?

The tagline to the movie Run Lola Run says, “Every second of every day you face a decision that can change your life.” Why not slow down and take the time to make the correct decision? Isn’t there enough pain in the world already?

The bag is not your customer's accountant

Why is it that 95% of businesses will automatically put your receipt in your bag? Of the remaining 5%, 4% will ask you if you want it in the bag. The other 1% doesn’t even give you a receipt unless you specifically ask for one.

Honestly, this “receipt in the bag” mentality utterly burns me up. And I’ll tell you why. As a musician, I am a business. Every year at tax time, I file a T2032, a Statement of Professional Activities, with my income tax return. In case the Canada Revenue Agency wants to audit my return at some point, I have to hang on to all my receipts for a maximum of six years in order to back up the expense claims I make on that statement. And in order to simplify my reporting of those expenses, I have to keep detailed accounting records. If I allow a receipt to remain in the bag, then what if I inadvertently leave one such bag on the bus or something? There goes whatever proof that I bought whatever the bag contains. If the receipt in question happens to be partly for personal stuff and partly for stuff I bought for my business, then I can’t even break down what amounts go where.

When it comes time to compile the raw data from those receipts for the general journal, it does not make sense to me to pull out multiple receipts from multiple bags. Those bags are not a logical place to go looking for those receipts when the receipts can be placed in one central location to begin with--in my case, my wallet. Those bags are not going to do that accounting work for you--hence my axiom, “The bag is not my accountant.”

Now, I may not be making enough money to justify a ten-, twenty- or even thirty store shopping spree in a given day, but think about other people who do--the more stores a person shops at, the more receipts he’s going to have to dig out of bags. In today’s world, where people don’t seem to have a lot of time for certain things to begin with, does it make logistical sense for a business to ask the customer to take that additional time?

Some people need the receipts as tools to help them manage their household finances. One user maintains his banking records on Excel and reconciles those records to monthly budget spreadsheets. If the cashier puts his receipt in the bag, then “it falls out [of] the bag, or I forget it’s in there and it gets recycled along with the bag. It doesn’t get entered on my spreadsheet and then I end up thinking I have more money than I actually do.”

I’ve read that some people don’t want the receipt at all, but this isn’t a good attitude to have. A recent article called “Carelessness Can Cost You” quotes a recent survey as establishing that while Americans may be concerned about someone stealing their credit card, chequing account or debit card numbers, fully 28% of them are careless with receipts. Nearly 13% of those surveyed throw the receipt away without tearing it up or shredding it. Another 13% leave the receipt in the bag they got with the purchase. I would imagine the statistics to be similar for Canadians.

A Constant Chatter web site makes an excellent point: If you leave the receipt in the bag with the items, you increase the chance that a thief will pick up your bag when you’re not looking, and then go to the store himself and try to claim a refund. If you paid cash, you’re out of luck. The December 4, 2000 edition of the Saint Paul Pioneer Press of Saint Paul, Minnesota noted an example of this very kind of theft: in this case, the item stolen was a TV. If you paid via credit card, the thief would then know your credit card number, or most of it anyway, and sooner or later you would notice some charges on your credit card statement for stuff you didn’t purchase.

Nor can receipts be useful as just evidence you bought something and of how much it cost you. If someone accuses you of being somewhere at a certain time and you know you were shopping somewhere else at that time, you can pull out the receipt and present it as proof. If you don’t have that receipt, again you’re out of luck.

Bottom line is, you wouldn’t leave your ID in a shopping bag, would you? So why treat the receipt any differently? Why should store workers encourage their customers to treat the receipt any differently? Who are the store workers to assume they don’t have any self-employed people, household finance managers and so on among their customer base? A lot of the time they never know who among their customers is a business and who isn’t, or who manages their finances and who doesn’t. If you’re a store clerk, I feel it’s better to assume a person, particularly if he’s only an occasional visitor to your store, is a business unless you know for sure he isn’t.

This brings me to another thing I’m not crazy about when it comes to shopping. If I pay by debit card, 99% of the time I get a slip indicating the total amount that I spent, and I don’t get an itemized receipt unless I specifically ask for one. I shouldn’t have to ask--I should get both of them automatically. Again, what if, in the same transaction, I’m buying both personal stuff and stuff for my business? Or what if I’m buying things for my business that happen to fall into different expense categories on the T2032? Or what if I were eligible to claim GST rebates and the debit slip didn’t include the tax breakdowns? How can I then know what the breakdowns are if all I get is a debit slip and no itemized receipt? Or what if you’re one of two customers in line that are buying different combinations of things, and each combination happens to cost the same total amount? How can the store then tell the two transactions apart if their receipt summary system doesn’t show the specific items?

In business, there’s a saying: “The customer is always right.” This means that the customer has the right to draw the line when it comes to certain issues, and that it’s the business’ responsibility to make sure that line is not crossed. Having said that, I feel that business owners ought to learn what their customers want and always act in accordance with their wishes. I believe that to do otherwise demonstrates a lack of respect for the customer, not to mention poor customer service.

A satisfied customer is a repeat customer. Dissatisfied customers will not come back. And in the end, aren’t keeping customers and keeping the sales flowing what being in business is all about?