When It’s Okay to Break The Rules

When should we follow the rules? When can we violate them? When should we preserve beautiful order? When can we flirt with anarchy?

A few years ago, my wife and I were getting ready to sleep when the most horrifying sound came from our son’s bedroom: the sound of a young child coughing and struggling to breathe. I entered his bedroom but failed to figure out what was going on. A morbid feeling of helplessness climbed up the back of my throat as I held my son; his mind was racing to process the transition from a peaceful sleep to now being awake and unable to breathe. After a minute or so of trying to calm him down to no avail, we called our neighbour to come and sit with our still-somehow-sleeping daughter, jumped in the car and went to the Children’s Hospital that was fortunately located nearby.

Several laws were broken during the course of that short drive: speed limits, car seat requirements (my wife held our frightened, gasping son on her lap), lane change regulations, and stop sign commands. The law makes no exception for taking these actions in the event of an emergency. If you are responding to an emergency in an official vehicle equipped with a flashing light visible from 500 feet away and an audible siren, the traffic laws largely don’t apply to you, but if you’re a private citizen driving your own car, your response to an emergency doesn’t exempt you from the rules.

What kind of father would I have been if I hadn’t broken the law in that situation?

• What if I had insisted that my wife buckle our gasping son in the backseat instead of holding him tightly and giving him as much comfort as possible?

• What if I had obeyed the 25-mph speed limit in our neighbourhood and come to a complete standstill at every stop sign?

• What if I had maintained the prescribed distance behind the car in front of me and signaled for the prescribed period of time before changing lanes?

We’re all accustomed to living with rules. They govern everything from the hospitals we were born in, to the homes we grow up in, to the schools we attend, to the jobs we hold. However, sometimes it’s okay to break them. After all, they’re human-designed and therefore imperfect. The key is knowing when to do so!