I don’t like cops. No. I am generally law abiding not necessarily because I am a good person 😀but because breaking the law is expensive. But I hate our traffic police and the courts that deal with traffic offences.
I swear these two groups don’t exist to make our lives better. First, the traffic cops will take every opportunity to extort you for an infraction and because going to the courts is generally a tiring prospect, people would rather part with money in form of a bribe that the humiliation of the court process.
You recall I have once written about the speed cops who would flag you down for driving 5kph above the posted speed limit and threaten to take you to court or waste your whole day until you bribe them. What difference does it make if I drive 5kph faster in an area where there are no pedestrian crossings or a market?
The traffic courts are worse. You go to court at 9 only for your case to be mentioned at 11 or 12. A whole day wasted just because of a minor infraction.
If you ask me, our legal system and the traffic department are not concerned with road safety rather they are opportunities for government to get money from us over and above what it takes in the name of tax. Or for the police officers to line their pockets with in the name of bribes.
Maybe we should abolish the police!
Random thoughts 
Rather puts meaning to the term corrupt.
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I think we can replace cops with corrupt and we will not be far off
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Corrupt police probably exist in every jurisdiction. Fortunately they are very rare around here. Here if you get a traffic infringement, you simply pay the fine at the nearest courthouse. You can even pay via the Internet. You only attend court if you wish to dispute the infringement. BTW we have a 3km/hr over the limit tolerance, so your 5 seems generous 😊
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Are the fines fixed or depends on the mood of the judge?
Some of the speed limits posted here I think are impractical. I don’t even know what informs them ( I have asked my engineer friends & they say they don’t know)
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Speeding infringements are a fixed scale. You. Need to get to offenses such as dangerous or careless driving, driving while intoxicated, driving without a licence etc, which are crimes and not infringements before you must appear before a judge. At sentencing judges have some amount of discretion, but here, precedent set at previous trials must also be taken into consideration.
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The only improvement in our traffic laws is you don’t have to carry your license. The police can confirm its validity online.
You appear before a judge only if you cannot agree with the police on a bribe.
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As I’ve mentioned before we’re the least corrupt nation in the world, and the offering, request or acceptance of a bribe will very quickly land you in hot water. I’m curious about the fact that you don’t need to carry your licence while driving. How else can the police know who you are? We didn’t use to have to carry our drivers licence while driving until relatively recently when they were re-issued with photographs. If you’re stopped while driving and don’t have your licence, it’ll probably mean a trip to the nearest police station until your identity can be confirmed.
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All you need is your national id. They will key the number into an app and verify your driving licence.
As to offering or receiving bribes, that’s the way of life here; starts with the office of the president and ends at the lowest rung of authority
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Ah, I understand now. There’s no such thing as a national ID here. When the drivers licence with photo ID was introduced here, the commotion and noise over claims that it was Big Brother in action and that we were becoming a police state was extremely loud. I keep my drivers licence in the car, so have no means of identification when I’m not in it.
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Since not everyone here has a driving licence, the national ID, a carryover from the colonial days is used instead.
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So is there a requirement to carry it with you? We’re only required to carry a drivers license while driving.
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Not exactly. I can and do walk around without my ID. If the police ask for my DL I can tell them my ID number. That’s enough information to get my other details.
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Though I am no fan of the police, I believe we need some kind of police. Of course, corruption of police officers is bad and should be addressed (for starters, by paying them a decent salary). Also I am in favor of the UK model of unarmed police officers.
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I think our government or maybe most governments do not want reasonable police officers. How would you have them fire teargas at people fighting for democratic space if they are reasonable? They might just join the demonstrators and this will not work for the government.
Unarmed police is a good place to start.
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Here in the Netherlands the police is now facing several charges of sexual harassment of female officers by their superiors.
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This is such a shame. I don’t know how prevalent this is here. Maybe police abuse against inmates would be quite high
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I’m in British Columbia.
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That’s going on here too.
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I hope it leads to reformation of the police force
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Things are happening, women are speaking up, & charges are occurring.
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This is good to see happening. The police need to be more transparent in how it addresses such matters
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For sure. Things have got to change.
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Though I don’t know where you live, I am hardly surprised. Power breeds corruption, power eroticizes…
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somewhere in Canada
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One doesn’t have to be breaking the law to be pulled over by traffics cops.
It’s often a case of : ”You looking at me funny, pal?”
You’ll enjoy this ….South African Trevor Noah on Traffic Cops.
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I think this is no different from our cops. When you are flagged down by an officer, the possibilities are many but don’t include getting shot at. It is always about court, bribe or on rare occasions being left to go without paying anything
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Traffic cops writing tickets is the same as the toll booth at the state parks…to pay for the toll takers to sit there. Panama traffic is crazy and fast, like a good symphony. People flow with it, speeding, slowing, no turn signals, , in and out up and down and it’s smooth as glass. Our moral compass could learn something from it.
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I like the no turn signals. When I drive at night and maybe I am paranoid I am being followed, I just turn.
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It actually makes driving safer if nobody uses them unless they need a favor to get in a lane. Without signals you have to be watching out because you never really know what people are going to do
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I think this would work even the highway. The lowest speed limit should be posted in markets only. The rest of the highway, let each man and woman find their own comfortable speed.
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Humans have a way of getting in the way of nature. Our attempts to fix everything is the biggest problem we face. And religion thinks it can cheat death, leading to even bigger conundrums.
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I think I find too much control too much for me. Fewer rules would make things much easier. But then how would lawyers make money?
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Cleaning sewers?
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In their suits and Latin phrases? You jest. They will charge us by the minute!
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I’ll disagree with you here. Signalling your intentions beforehand grants others an opportunity to plan ahead — especially when it involves speeds.
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Here’s what you need to do. Tell the President of Ukraine that you’ll send him some missiles if he can dig up some dirt on the cops in your area. Then have him send said info to local papers and have the cops reps smeared in public. This is how we do things in America, and, so far, it’s been working wonderfully for us. Wouldn’t change a thing.
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The cops will bribe the Ukrainians are kill them extra judiciary.
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Well, whatever keeps the corruption live and well. Could you imagine how awful things would be without it? Me either.
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They call it convenience fees.
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Your simple solution makes all the sense in the world to me! Let’s abolish the legal enforcement idiots and incarcerate them all! Naked hugs! 🙂
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i should start charging for being this wise eh
hahaha
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How much? I’ll pay! 🙂
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I’d be angry too.
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Around here bribery is severely frowned upon. Nonetheless, the traffic cops’ number one priority in most jurisdictions is to generate as much revenue for the city as possible under the guise that it’s purely for the purpose of increasing road safety.
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I think this is what the police is trying to do here but because the court processes are cumbersome, no one wants to go to court
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In my country we had until some years ago, an official “ticket quota”: a policy that stated how many traffic fines should be issued…
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i think the police have an official quota. there are times of day when they flag you down, they take you to court regardless of your protestations.
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The idea that people piloting multi-tons of plastic and metal at high rates of speed are somehow oppressed and need more FREE-DUMB is ludicrous to me. And, as others have noted, cops are often corrupt because they are paid sub-living wage salaries. Sorry, Maka, I’m going to be the dissenter here. Too many (American) drivers are careless, distracted, and very, very entitled. Any person (say…a cyclist) who slows them down in their so very important trip to Wal Mart or the bar is a unamerican criminal who deserves to be blasted with a cloud of black smoke. (Google…Rolling Coal).
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I hear you Brian. For us, the worst offenders are those who drive public service vehicles. They force you out of the road, they stop without notice, they obstruct and all
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Reblogged this on Road safety Mornington Peninsula and commented:
that is funny
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Really.
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