IMHO that's a somewhat smug/condescending attitute. While you might have been lucky enough to have a child that doesn't need that sort of threat, I tend to think your own "cleverness" has very little to do with the subject, your luck has a lot more.
There are plenty of kids out there that without the threat of a quick smack on the backside run wild over their parents.
While I know there are some people who use spanking as a first resort, the vast majority of parents who use it, do so as a last resort. Do you honestly think that the majority of people who spank their kids do so because they like doing it? Instead of sitting their smug, in your self rightiousness, you should try to place yourself in the position of a parent whose child doesn't respond to your "smart" methods, whose child is willfull and disobedient to the point of endangering themselves. Given a willful child and the threat of them climbing on a 20 foot wall, running in the road or playing on railway lines what would you NOT do to get their attention and make them cease doing dangerous things?
I was spanked! However, I was a child who didn't mind being spanked, and alot of the time, my mother would spank, I would laugh, she would FUMIGATE!!! 
so I learned quickly, that isn't the way to go, because she, like I did, likes pain. 
