I love how you guys handle the police.
Pardon the wall of text but stupid traffic cop always gets me going.
My then 5 year old son and I were walking up the road leading to our former apartment. My son was walking on the shoulder I guess you call it, the unpaved part of the road closest to the houses. A scooter, one of those blowdryer things, comes tearing down the road, weaving back and forth. You know, because it was cool.
As the driver passed me by, his handlebar snagged the strap of my backpack. Up flew the backpack and hit me on the face. The impact was such that the right lens of my glasses popped out. The motorcycle driver went into a skid and left tracks on the road. Not much damage on his part, just a few broken lights.
I snapped. I started screaming and cursing him in a voice loud enough to rouse the dead. That was uncharacteristic of me, really. I was so scared because had the strap gotten stuck, my son and I would have gotten dragged along with him.
The guy was so drunk I could smell the alcohol on him from a couple feet away. It didn't help we spoke different languages. His neighbor told me it was my fault because I was walking on the side of the road. She quickly shut up when I asked her if she thought that walking in the middle of the road was perhaps safer for me and my son?
We ended up at the police station, a traffic cop was called, the driver's pregnant wife begged and pleaded with me to let it go. She said they couldn't afford the fine, they couldn't afford to pay for my glasses, they were very poor, etcetera. I felt sorry for her but her husband was a right jerk.
I have no idea about our driving laws here, comes from not driving I suppose. The traffic cop tells me to settle at the Land Transportation Office. When we get there, the officer asks me how it happened, looks at the ticket and calls for the traffic cop. Idiot failed to list several major violations, like failure to wear a helmet, using a private vehicle as a means of public transport, and more. Traffic cop, the ass, also misled me into believing that the affair regarding my glasses could be settled at the LTO and that the driver wouldn't get his licence back without an agreement. Wrong again.
It pays to have traffic cops as neighbors when you're a drunk and stupid driver.