Are you sinning? A test

[RastaPasta]

Hypothetical situation:

You are driving a car on an empty road in the middle of a flat landscape where there is no obstruction as far as the eye can see.

There’s no other traffic.

The car is capable of 200 miles per hour.

The legal speed limit is 50 miles per hour.

You drive your car at 100 mph down this perfect (mythical!) road.

Would you be sinning by breaking the law in this example?

And if you passed by a police car (equipped with radar) on this mythical road - what then?

Would you continue to drive your car at 100 mph in a zone that is designated as being 50 mph, or would you slow down?

Why would you slow down?

Perhaps it’s because you know that you are doing the wrong thing?

If you know that you are doing the wrong thing - in all likelihood you are committing a sin.

Of course you could always speed up (your car DOES have a speed of 200 mph), but wouldn’t that be an evasive maneuver?

Isn’t deliberately trying to escape from the police when they have just cause in and of itself sinful?

 

[triumphguy]

If you saw a police-car on this mythical road, you would slow down because you didn’t want a mythical ticket to help fill their mythical quotas!

 

[wcknight]

Driving at 100 mph is dangerous no matter what the conditions are… posting 50 on such a road would be nonsensical so speeding here would probably be a venial sin if at all. 75 or 80 would be much more prudent.

 

[rhiannonh]

Is it a sin to challenge the law?

 

[odile53]

My husband, who had raced cars (formula one) for awhile in his youth, told me once that at speeds like 200 mph the run of the mill automobile operator (that’s the average licensed driver) is not really in control of the vehicle, especially if it is not modified for that kind of speed. So it would seem to be minimally a venial sin (arrogance,) and maybe a mortal sin (risking one’s own life and limb unnecessarily and for no good purpose.)

And in the case of outrunning a police car, remember, you can’t outrun a radio!