At The Mercy of a Traffic Cop

The dismal driving attitude in the UAE has driven me up the wall so much so that flashing of lights, blowing of horns , frantic waving of arms or even attempts to drive me off the road don’t hassle me at all. But last month in Abu-Dhabi this laid back approach of mine led to trouble.

After a late night dinner I was driving back with my wife and little son when there was this guy behind me who was in a tearing hurry, ( probably wanted to use a toilet )  – flashing his lights – but who cared – not me !!. Since he was riding a bike he managed to overtake me and God – He turned out to be a traffic cop !!. It suddenly dawned upon him that he was not in a hurry after all & asked me to pull over. He was pretty pissed off that a mortal like me could have stood in his way. I apologized profusely in every language possible but got nowhere at all. My wife sat in the car hoping that I would be able to use my persuasive skills to get out of this mess but when she realized that I wasn’t succeeding she got out and gave me tough looks – Now I had 2 people who made me look like a helpless & hopeless fool – things were really getting bad. My son who is crazy about bike’s seemed to be the only person happy because his dad had given him a chance to look at a cop’s bike at close quarters.

He asked me for my car registration card & I couldn’t believe my eyes when it was nowhere to be found. It is like being caught at the immigration without a passport !!!. My poor little wife ransacked the entire car looking for it and all that was left to do was rip off the seats – Now I was in real trouble. The cop was smiling from ear to ear dreaming up of the fine he was going to slap on me ( of course, I was dreaming of slapping him as well !!) – I am sure these guys get a portion of it as an incentive !!!.

Since my car is registered in Dubai he decided to check out the car details with the Dubai cops. By the way his conversation was going I knew that this was going to be one hell of a long night & the sinking feeling was drowning me. Having finished his conversation my cop friend turned around and said that the registration number on my car belonged to a Lexus even though I drive a Nissan – Now he was out to prove that I was a car thief !!!. They say when trouble comes it just comes and comes and keeps coming !!!. We were well into an hour , my wife was waiting to get her hands on me & my son wouldn’t have minded another hour by the road.

Off to the station we drove & I volunteered to call the Dubai police myself. “  Thank you for calling Dubai police “ a recorded message said – press 1 for good morning , 2 for good evening and 3 for good bye !!! A romantic evening had turned into a traumatic night & the good food I ate was turning into bad crap !!! Finally, they probably saw the anger in my wife’s eyes and gauged that I would have enough trouble at her hand’s then in theirs & let me go with a Dhs. 200/- fine.

Well, I am back to my old ways once again except that when somebody flashes at me I look real hard through my tinted rear view to make sure it’s not a grinning cop out to make a fast buck at my expense.