The Soapbox | Where South Africans Speak Out

Over the Easter Week-end I went to Jozi to visit family and friends. One evening during my stay, a friend and I went out on the town. Being the D2 (designated driver), I had been cautious not to drink too much. On our way home however, we were stopped by a rather small road block somewhere close to the CBD. I was not concerned at this stage as I was confident that the 2 beers and numerous glasses of water ingested over the 5 hour social event would render me well under the 0.24 BAC limit.

A scary looking policeman arrived at my window with a large gun pasted to his bullet-proof vest at eye-level. I was asked for my driver’s license, to which I obliged. He took a slow walk around the car I had borrowed from my mother, to check the license while he waited for his rather more hostile colleague. As soon as the said colleague arrived, the initial cop returned to my open window and the flood gates of aggression opened, “You have been drinking!” to which I replied, “yes sir, but I only had 2 beers and am under the legal limit”.

They repeated their accusations, each time with a noted volume increase and then shoved a plastic covered tube in my face and yelled for me to open the packaging. I was then commanded to blow three or four times into the breathalyser. I was shown the result: “passive 208”. The officer then started to bellow again stating that I was over the limit and that I would be taken into custody.  I rebutted that the machine indicated a passive result. He said I would have to exit the car and spend the night in the downtown jail. Panicked and overcome with fear, I simply stated that did not want to go to jail. The cop then said that there was the option of a “spot fine” of R750. I said that I didn’t have that kind of money on me, and that I would have to go to an ATM. He then asked me to open the car, which I did. He and his colleague then climbed into the back seat of the car to accompany us to the ATM!

My friend at this point said that as two woman alone at  two am she refused to go anywhere with two strange gun-wielding men in the car. They subsequently flashed their badges in an effort to reassure us, yet they were not wearing name tags and would not allow us to take down their badge numbers. I attempted to call a friend who lived nearby and was instructed to put down my cell phone immediately as I was “obstructing proceedings”. After a flurry of shouting and threatening back and forth, the cop finally agreed to get out of the car and that the best course of action would be for him to follow us to the ATM. Once they had vacated the car, I realised that the “spot fine” was in fact a bribe — normal brain activity had been restored — something which I absolutely refuse to pay. I phoned my mother as soon as they exited the car and when the policeman saw that I was on the phone, he got out his car, hurriedly collected my drivers license and returned it to me saying, “Just go — consider this a warning”.

I find it appalling that the very people that are employed to enforce the law and protect us are the ones who are contributing to corruption and the intimidation of those that actually make an effort to abide by the law. The thing is, drunk driving is a big problem in South Africa today and responsible for far too many road accidents and deaths.  It is an issue that needs to be taken to task. The idea of road blocks and curbing drunken driving is highly commendable, but it is unacceptable that the police use these essentially good measures for extortion!

Mimi is a freaked out driver