Last night after an interesting day at the golf club with my friends K, S and R, it was time to drop off everyone and retire. It’s 8pm and I am on my way to drop off K. As we approach a police check point in the Bastos neighborhood, the policeman indicates with a show of a torch that we should pull over. Just then I ask K if she has her ID card. Positive.
The policeman comes over, introduces himself and asks for the vehicle registration documents (including road worthiness certificate, insurance and driver’s license). As I open the pigeon hole I realize I have none of the above with me! There seems to be something with me and car documents on weekends. The simple truth is that changing handbags sometimes causes me to forget the car document jacket at home. And on weekends when my mood is lighter, I prefer to go with bigger purses rather than bigger handbags and this leads to the inevitable.
The officer tells me I have violated the law and the car will be taken to the police station for him to write his report, before proceeding to impound the car at the council impoundment unit. So I plead with him to empathize with me since it is human to forget (at least I had my ID card on me). He won’t budge. His colleague blatantly adds that an officer is not a journalist who explains the law to the ignorant. They walk off.
Just then, I see the officer pulling over another vehicle. From my observations, the driver didn’t have any documents on him either, so he handed over to the policeman a ruffled bank note, it was dark so I couldn’t see the amount. The discussion was over when the driver drove off. Was I expected to do the same? Let’s see how this goes. At that moment it dawned on me that I was the perfect victim of win-win corruption encounter (see my May 2009 blog entry: My corruption encounter: types of legal tender).
So I make a proposal: let’s go to the police station to keep with the car where it is secure, then I go home to bring the required documents. He still won’t budge, this time he was insisting on the fact that I must admit that the breach of the law has been committed and I will still have to pay a fine. Interesting to note that since they realized I didn’t have those documents on me, they didn’t bother to ask for the ID card of my friend K.
K and I had to think fast, initially the officer refused to let us leave the car there, he eventually agreed and I decided to go home to bring the documents, leaving K in the car. K and I resolved that I hire a taxi and quickly go home 5km away to bring the documents. When I returned, that particular police officer was nowhere to be found! He was probably “busy” with another victim. So his colleague whom I found sitting inside another vehicle they had pulled over checked the car registration documents which were all in perfect condition. On second thought, I wonder what an officer would be doing inside the vehicle of someone who has been pulled over…
I enjoyed the experience. I wonder if any lessons were learnt that night. Do you think?
2 comments:
That was a wonderful decision to take, but I bet you were simply lucky for even with your douments, the policeman would have cited a number of inadequate issues concerning your vehicle just to confuse you and get his bank note.They call such settlement 'opportunity cost for time'and this time you won with PATIENCE
Many thanks for ur observation Deodat!
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