Last week a few of us pilled in my truck and headed to Joburg to do a little shopping and maybe catch a movie. About halfway into our 3 hour trip a man walks right out into the middle of the road as I’m going 145/km per hour (90 miles per hour). Normally, this is not normal, but here in South Africa it means that you are being pulled over for speeding. “Pulled over” doesn’t seem like the right phrase, because once you pull your car off the road you have to go to them. You can either put your car in reverse or just get out of your car and walk back to them. Yeah, I know it’s crazy.

So I put the truck in reverse and drive back until the cop comes up to my window. He asks where I’m coming from and why I’m going so fast. After I give him that story I whip out my Florida drivers license (yes, it’s valid here) and this is where the fun begins. He looks at it and really has no idea what to make of it. I tell him I’m a missionary here from America, but that doesn’t seem to change the confusion on his face. After he looks at the license for another 30 seconds he asks me to get out of the car and come talk to his supervisor. The supervisor then explains to me that they can’t write tickets for my drivers license here so I need to drive to the police station about 30 miles away to get my ticket. She start giving me directions and I stop here mid sentence and tell her that there’s no way I’m driver God knows where so I can pay the ticket.

After about 30 seconds of silence from all 3 cops one lets me know that the speeding ticket will cost me about R300 ($50) and I can pay for it now if I have cash. Like anybody who’s getting ticket I give him the “dang, that’s a lot of money” which I did not expecting to get much sympathy, but he replies, “What would you prefer to pay”. Holy Crap! I get to bargain with a police officer. For a second I thought this is crazy, but then I remember I’m in South Africa and this is just how things work here. So after some interesting bargaining with a South Africa police officer I ended up only paying R100 ($16) for speeding. It’s worth nothing that there was no paperwork so everyone is pretty sure that the cops most likely just pocketed the cash. Which is ok with me, because that is the cheapest speeding ticket I’ve ever got.

This was no doubt one of the craziest things that has happened to me since I’ve been in South Africa.

1. Allan & Maria said...

    

   I’m going to try that here next time I get pulled over! “Hey copper I’ll slip you 16 bucks if you let me slide”