I have tried to go through life as an expatriate resident of the DR without having to experience too much of the Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare side of life here. One notable exception was my immersion into the residency process a couple of years ago, which I catalogued for the benefit and amusement of fellow posters here.
In fact, this reminds me of a friend whose intricate and often lurid personal problems would make for very good dinner table conversation, and she would say - often through sobs - "I only do these things to amuse my friends". The lesson for me has been, in times of adversity, however frustrating, never lose sight of the fact that it will make for a great anecdote, or at very the least a mediocre DR1 post, some time in the future.
Anyway, the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed my passing reference to having been fined for a minor traffic offence in AZB's recent AMET thread.
This happened last week, on a main Santo Domingo intersection where, apparently, it is forbidden to turn left. In the dimension I inhabit there is no indication that such a manoeuvre is prohibited, so when the light changed to green, I swung my little tin box leftwards, only to realise my mistake when I saw the stream of oncoming traffic. The AMET chappie on duty asked for my licence, and before I could deftly extract the photocopy I keep handy in my wallet, he got his paws on the real thing, also tucked into my wallet. Anyway to cut a long story short, and swiftly skimming over the bits where I lose my usual ice-cool demeanour and start kicking inanimate objects on the roadside, he wrote me a ticket and retained my licence.
On closer inspection, it turns out I don't just have to pay a fine (amount to be determined) but I had to attend a tribunal on Friday 29th October. Great! I think. That gives me time to prepare my case!
My attorney (well, my husband) and I marched into the AMET HQ this morning in full courtroom drama attire and armed with photos of the intersection that demonstrate the absence of any 'no left turn' signpost, and showing the road surface markings with a big arrow pointing left. This, BTW, had been dismissed by my AMET buddy as 'the responsibility of Obras Publicas'.
We were met with total pandemonium. Forget Kafka. Think Dante. A dimly-lit sweaty entrance hall with a sizeable horde of angry men waving traffic tickets in the air, in the direction of an official standing on a small flight of stairs. A helpful bystander points me towards the court room, explaining that women don't have to go through this indignity. Lesson no. 1: if you are careless enough to get fined, make sure you are not a man. My husband was prevented from entering the court room with me, even when I tried to persuade the man at the door that I needed him to interpret for me. He wasn't having any of it.
The courtroom was crowded but a little less chaotic, in that my details were swiftly taken by a polite and sympathetic clerk, and the official who fixes the amount of the fine took his time to listen to my case and agreed that I should have had a verbal warning from the AMET cop, and not a fine. He said that the judge was not there today, otherwise she had the power to cancel the fine, but that he would fine me the symbolic minimum of RD$25. I don't know how common this is, but sneaking peeks at other people's slips of paper they were getting fines of RD$250, 500 or more.
The people in the courtroom were - if you can go by appearances - from the lower end of the social-economic spectrum. There was no-one there who resembled the people I see violating traffic laws on a daily basis. You know the types: the baseball cap wearing jevitos in new cars, the elegant ladies with big hair and long nails, expensive cellphones and luxury cars or SUVs, or the bigshot men in similar vehicles. These people were not represented in this group, which appeared to consist mainly of carro publico drivers, commercial vehicle drivers and the odd middle-income professional who just about manages to afford a 15 year old car. Few of the people there looked smart enough even to be a chauffeur or messenger for a wealthy person. Lesson no. 2, as if we needed to be told, is that if you want to do whatever you want in this country, don't make the mistake of being poor.
The impression one gets is that if an AMET official has the temerity to stop some powerful, wealthy or well-connected individual, they face getting into trouble, or at the very least the offender manages to get off the hook with a quick cellphone call to the corridors of power and influence. Who is left then? The small fish. Not that concho drivers are blameless, on the contrary, but I am sure many of the people there were in the same category as me. I wonder if in the recent AMET crackdowns they have to fulfil a quota of fines, because fining me was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of traffic offenders.
I was too angry to post about this until today. Now, having only wasted a few hours of my time, and just RD$25 poorer, I can just about see the funny side. I hope you did too.
In fact, this reminds me of a friend whose intricate and often lurid personal problems would make for very good dinner table conversation, and she would say - often through sobs - "I only do these things to amuse my friends". The lesson for me has been, in times of adversity, however frustrating, never lose sight of the fact that it will make for a great anecdote, or at very the least a mediocre DR1 post, some time in the future.
Anyway, the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed my passing reference to having been fined for a minor traffic offence in AZB's recent AMET thread.
This happened last week, on a main Santo Domingo intersection where, apparently, it is forbidden to turn left. In the dimension I inhabit there is no indication that such a manoeuvre is prohibited, so when the light changed to green, I swung my little tin box leftwards, only to realise my mistake when I saw the stream of oncoming traffic. The AMET chappie on duty asked for my licence, and before I could deftly extract the photocopy I keep handy in my wallet, he got his paws on the real thing, also tucked into my wallet. Anyway to cut a long story short, and swiftly skimming over the bits where I lose my usual ice-cool demeanour and start kicking inanimate objects on the roadside, he wrote me a ticket and retained my licence.
On closer inspection, it turns out I don't just have to pay a fine (amount to be determined) but I had to attend a tribunal on Friday 29th October. Great! I think. That gives me time to prepare my case!
My attorney (well, my husband) and I marched into the AMET HQ this morning in full courtroom drama attire and armed with photos of the intersection that demonstrate the absence of any 'no left turn' signpost, and showing the road surface markings with a big arrow pointing left. This, BTW, had been dismissed by my AMET buddy as 'the responsibility of Obras Publicas'.
We were met with total pandemonium. Forget Kafka. Think Dante. A dimly-lit sweaty entrance hall with a sizeable horde of angry men waving traffic tickets in the air, in the direction of an official standing on a small flight of stairs. A helpful bystander points me towards the court room, explaining that women don't have to go through this indignity. Lesson no. 1: if you are careless enough to get fined, make sure you are not a man. My husband was prevented from entering the court room with me, even when I tried to persuade the man at the door that I needed him to interpret for me. He wasn't having any of it.
The courtroom was crowded but a little less chaotic, in that my details were swiftly taken by a polite and sympathetic clerk, and the official who fixes the amount of the fine took his time to listen to my case and agreed that I should have had a verbal warning from the AMET cop, and not a fine. He said that the judge was not there today, otherwise she had the power to cancel the fine, but that he would fine me the symbolic minimum of RD$25. I don't know how common this is, but sneaking peeks at other people's slips of paper they were getting fines of RD$250, 500 or more.
The people in the courtroom were - if you can go by appearances - from the lower end of the social-economic spectrum. There was no-one there who resembled the people I see violating traffic laws on a daily basis. You know the types: the baseball cap wearing jevitos in new cars, the elegant ladies with big hair and long nails, expensive cellphones and luxury cars or SUVs, or the bigshot men in similar vehicles. These people were not represented in this group, which appeared to consist mainly of carro publico drivers, commercial vehicle drivers and the odd middle-income professional who just about manages to afford a 15 year old car. Few of the people there looked smart enough even to be a chauffeur or messenger for a wealthy person. Lesson no. 2, as if we needed to be told, is that if you want to do whatever you want in this country, don't make the mistake of being poor.
The impression one gets is that if an AMET official has the temerity to stop some powerful, wealthy or well-connected individual, they face getting into trouble, or at the very least the offender manages to get off the hook with a quick cellphone call to the corridors of power and influence. Who is left then? The small fish. Not that concho drivers are blameless, on the contrary, but I am sure many of the people there were in the same category as me. I wonder if in the recent AMET crackdowns they have to fulfil a quota of fines, because fining me was really scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of traffic offenders.
I was too angry to post about this until today. Now, having only wasted a few hours of my time, and just RD$25 poorer, I can just about see the funny side. I hope you did too.