A Red Light For Scorfflaws Summary

The importance of the law often get forgotten by ordinary American citizens. Frank Trippett in his excerpt, “A Red Light for Scofflaws,” argues that Americans think that law-and-order is threatened mainly by violent crime. He supports his argument by first giving examples of the minor laws that people seem to ignore, such as speeding and littering. He continues by stating that breaking these ‘minor’ laws have a greater affect on foundations of social order than people think they do. The author’s uses a serious tone to get American citizens to understand the major impact that these minor laws can have if they are broken. These minor laws were made to keep people safe and citizens should take these laws much more seriously because they are more

important than people think they are.
Trippett argues that law-and-order is threatened by breaking minor laws just as much as it is threatened by violent crime. He states, “When it comes to tax codes, or laws against littering or speeding or noise pollution, more and more ordinary citizens are becoming scofflaws.” The author is trying to explain that ordinary citizens are becoming people who casually break the law all the time. People often don’t understand the seriousness of disobeying minor laws. People may only be breaking minor laws that aren’t nearly as bad a committing a felony, however those small laws were made to keep people safe and could cause some serious problems if they are treated like they are unimportant.
Even laws as simple as littering or speeding have important roles in protecting society.

People often disobey rules such as littering because they assume that is won’t harm anyone, but people don’t really think about the long term effects. Littering won’t necessarily harm someone at the time that it is being done, but it will eventually have a major impact on the plants and animals living in the area. Laws against littering are made to keep our environment clean because that ultimately will affect how we live in the future. Laws regarding driving is also another law that is treated as if it is unimportant, however there are many dangers in breaking driving laws. Laws such as speeding or texting or drinking and driving are critical because the second that the driver’s attention is on something else rather than on the road, not only is the driver’s life at risk but so are the peoples’ lives around them. Drunk driving and texting while driving are notorious for creating nothing but chaos and have both caused many accidents and put many people in danger. If an accident is happens from texting and driving or speeding and results in death, those ‘minor’ laws suddenly become just as serious as a felony such as murder. Overall, minor laws can have the same results as serious

crimes.
Citizens may think that by disobeying minor laws they are causing no harm to anything or anyone, however that is not the case. American citizens need to understand that whether they are disobeying a minor law or they are committing a felony, they are still committing a crime. Laws are made to help keep people safe and to keep communities at peace, so law-and-order can be threatened by a minor law just as much as it is threatened by violent crime.