Do you guys remember when a traffic official tried to get bribe out of me? I do. And I also wrote all about it here. To make a long story short, I got tired of being asked for bribes, bought a dashcam, and then was asked for another bribe. That kind of thing is, unfortunately, quite normal in South Africa. Since then, a kind lawyer and his firm have taken the case and have been continually escalating a formal complaint, […]
cops
Another Day, Another Bribe Solicitation…
If you’ve lived in South Africa for any length of time, you’ll know that the South African Traffic Police have a less than stellar reputation. It’s not that they’re ALL corrupt, it’s just that the many thousand dishonest ones give the two or three honest officers a bad name. I’ve written about them before, but I’ve also had a couple of run ins I didn’t bother to write about. The corruption here would fill a blog all by itself, and […]
Update: 66.6% of South African Traffic Police are Corrupt
A few months ago, I made the bold claim that 100% of the traffic police here are corrupt. Based on my personal experiences at the time, that was the honest truth. To be fair though, I thought I should post an update, lest you get the impression honesty is hard to come by in South Africa. I’m pleased to report that while I was stopped two more times since then, I only encountered one more corrupt police officer, bringing my average to […]
100% of the Traffic Police Here are Corrupt…
…at least according to the 1 interaction I’ve had. So I guess to make broad statements based on such a limited sample size is unfair. According to most accounts, both online and from local South Africans, the number is no higher than 98.7%. I’ll get into the traffic here in an upcoming post, but that’s a topic all on its own. Picture a high-school play. All the actors are terrible and the play itself seems to have been created when […]