Until now, I've used a couple of basic ways to figure out how civilized any country, state or society is. My key method, dubbed the Bus Paradigm, was a great test for determining how one country stacks up against another civilization-wise. It simply relates to how common buses are used. It breaks down into the following categories:

• Countries that let people ride on the top of buses holding livestock.

• Countries that allow people and livestock to ride inside buses at the same time.

• Countries that do not allow anyone to ride on top of the bus, and limit passengers inside to carrying only one chicken or small goat.

• Countries that don't allow any animals at all inside the bus, but force riders to hang out of the windows so that more passengers can be squeezed inside.

• Countries that force most riders to sit in seats but make some stand and hang on to straps or poles.

• Countries that have air-conditioned buses but still force some people to ride standing up.

• Countries that make all bus riders sit down and use a seat belt.

• Countries where the buses fly and people live in cool space-age houses on the top of mile-high towers. (Meet George Jetson).

I think that's a pretty good way to tell where a society is, from an advancing civilization point of view. And from that list, you can see that Honolulu's doing pretty good. You rarely see anyone on a Honolulu city bus holding a goat.

But now I think there's a better way to judge how civilized a country or society is. I don't have a cute name for it yet but involves the enforcement of jaywalking and seat belt laws.

Hawai'i residents have recently been subjected to more rigid enforcement of these laws. More than 300 people have been busted for jaywalking, mostly Downtown, and forced to pay fines of about $130. Under the Click It Or Ticket campaign, police have been ticketing people in cars for not having their seat belts fastened. Those violations cost a whopping $95 a pop.

Now, you could argue that both these programs are really just poorly disguised ways for the city and county to raise extra money in a bad economy. But there is a more profound aspect to this kind of enforcement. It says a lot about how advanced, stable and civilized a society is. If everything happening in a society is so hunky-dory that jaywalkers and seat belt scofflaws are a major concern, then that society is doing pretty damn good.

Think about it. Right now in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, do you think they are ticketing jaywalkers? Are they pulling over people for driving without seat belts? No way. The main concern in those countries is stopping guys driving bomb-laden cars (without seat belts, no doubt) from blowing up those cars and killing jaywalkers. We'll know when the wars are really over in Iraq and Afghanistan and civilization is advancing when jaywalking and seat belt violations become a major law enforcement concern. And when people aren't allowed to ride on the top of buses in Baghdad or Kabul.

Read Charles Memminger's blog at http://charleyworld.honadvblogs.com.