Man v/s System

It was evening of 6th August 2022 when I and my wife impromptu decided to visit my wife’s favourite road side eatery at a distance not more than 2 km from our home. Since the place was close, we chose to take our two-wheeler. I rode it wearing my helmet. My wife who usually wears helmet riding on the pillion seat didn’t wear it on that day. While leaving from the house, I even thought of reminding her, but as it happens some time - I didn’t. Around 200 metre before the shop, at the cross road, we were stopped by traffic police men.

They stood at a corner at a place slightly hidden - the usual modus operandi to ensure that the person in/on the vehicle doesn’t see them. This helps them in catching the traffic offenders easily – possibly the only road safety mechanism that traffic police in India can deploy. For the uninitiated, unlike certain western countries where people might feel safe seeing police on the road, I’ve never felt extra safe with policemen in uniform around, be it market place or on roads. And I’m sure I’m not the exception in considering police men more of a nuisance than up keepers of law on the road.

I would’ve been in a slightly testy mood that day. As the police men asked me to stop, I couldn’t restraint myself (buoyed by the earlier experiences of interacting with traffic police men over the years) and instead of acting apologetic at what I had done, I got into a verbal altercation with the policeman. I told him what was his job trying to stop people on the way, why can’t he be given a better job than what he had been asked to do, how he was not stopping other violators and letting them slip by, why the system was weird and why traffic police on the road should be replaced by electronic systems, etc. In the meantime, I had also decided to not bribe the traffic police man – why should I pay the bugger.

In that situation, out of anybody other than me, 80% would’ve apologized - and that too profusely (hoping to get a reprieve) , 15% would’ve managed to run away, 3-4% would’ve remained staid and paid whatever fine the police men would’ve asked for. I was among the remaining 1%. Naturally, by this time, the police man had gotten visibly upset with me. He threatened me that he could even confiscate my two-wheeler for the way I was arguing with him. As expected, after a few minutes of back and forth, I surrendered myself to my fate. As I felt horribly pissed-off with myself for being so callous of not reminding my wife to wear helmet, he fed my driving license details into his POS like machine and doled out a long challan to me .

To my horror, my driving license had been confiscated and I was asked to pick it up from Traffic Police Control Room (a place far off from where the challan was cut) after paying a fine of Rs. 1000/-. I implored the police man to charge me the fine there and then and return my driving license. He replied calmly that if I had talked to him earlier, he would’ve put that in the system. But now, since the entry was already in the system, there was no room for wriggling out of it.

I knew I was at wrong. But I knew that I was not the only one at wrong. But then, you can’t win with the casino - you can’t win with the system.

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Five days later, a cousin of mine went to pick up the driving license from the place (the police man had told me that anybody could pick it on my behalf). I thought that when he would go to the place, after paying the money, driving license would be returned. But this time was different.

My cousin was told that I would’ve to personally visit the place. They would then show me some video on road safety first and then the subsequent step would be taken. After a lot of insistence by my cousin, they finally agreed to take fine money and instead cut a pink receipt in my name.

My driving license had been impounded which meant that I wouldn’t be able to drive for the next three months. Needless to say, it meant that I had been handicapped by the system for the coming months. I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of chores that I do on a day-to-day basis, which naturally would cause a lot of inconvenience to me and my family.

I’ve been driving for the past 20 years and would not consider my driving to be a concern to public safety. But now, my license has been revoked for the next three months because the pillion rider wasn’t wearing helmet.

I know it was my mistake to begin with (about not wearing the helmet), but was the system right?