Reckless Driving and Corruption

Yesterday, on my way back from Lusaka, I was stopped by the police for reckless driving at which time I received my second ticket since being in Zambia. Good thing they don’t keep track of tickets because if I continued at this rate I will have my license revoked.

Let me paint the scenario for you. I am following Lawrence Temfwe from Lusaka to Ndola, and Lawrence is what we would term a “speed demon.” On the road from Lusaka to Ndola, he averages 80 mph. That is totally fine with me, but I was not cited for reckless driving when I was going 80 mph. I was cited for reckless driving when I was driving 35 mph!

While following Lawrence, we came upon a truck that was going 20 mph. Lawrence passed the car right before a curve, but I said to myself that it would be reckless and dangerous to pass on the curb. When we came to the next straight away though, I did pass the truck. Unfortunately for me, the police officer who saw me said that I passed on a solid white line. Who cares that the lines are not visible on the road or that the car was going 20 mph on a road where the average speed is 65 mph.

The point of the story is not to prove my innocence because technically I was breaking the law. The point of the story is to illustrate my first encounter with corruption. While paying my ticket (you have to pay on the spot), the lady told us that we could pay half the amount of the ticket, but that we would not get a receipt. That means the money would go into her pocket, and that there would be no record of my wrong.

It was very tempting to just pay her the money and move on. The way they said it made bribery feel innocent and harmless. I internally debated what to do for about a minute. I finally decided to pay the full amount for two reasons. First, I knew that it was the right thing to do. I could not contribute to a corrupt society. I wish this was the main reason that I paid the full amount, but it was not. The main reason was that I would much rather have more of my money go to the Zambian government than some of my money to a corrupt policewoman. If she had been nice to me, maybe I would have decided to pay her the pocket money.

Before this experience, it was so easy for me to look down on people that feed the system of corruption, but until you are in that situation, do not judge. It would have been so easy for me to pay that woman and drive quickly on my way. No one would have known. Moral of the story: don’t judge until you have experienced it yourself. Next moral of the story: I have a disdain for authority. Immediately after I was given the ticket, I began to drive more recklessly. The ticket did not curb my behavior because I thought to myself, “If you are going to charge me for a vacuous offense, I am going to make sure I get my money’s worth.”