I am going to dedicate a couple of posts to the (not that many) times when I have had “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with the police (who are always there to look after our wellbeing, protecting us from all evil). Looking back in time, it seems there was always a car involved. Is it pure chance? or maybe because it is when you are most vulnerable?

LATVIA 2004

Charlie and I had flown to Helsinki, crossed by ferry to Tallinn and there we rented a car to drive around Estonia and Latvia for 10 days. Halfway through the trip we arrived at Riga around noon. We parked the car in the Town Hall Square (Rātslaukums) and left to walk around the city. We returned to the car in the evening and it had a parking fine shinning in the windscreen. When we were trying to decipher what was written on it, a policeman (pretty sure the same one that left the “present”) came. He barely spoke any english, but with the best Oxford pronunciation (maybe out of repeating it many times) he said: “this is disabled parking”. A bit surprised we looked everywhere for the well-known blue signal with the wheelchair chap on it. Nowhere to be found. So I told the policeman: “there is no sign”. And he replied: “but I know, disabled parking”. This piece of dialogue was repeated once more so we were sure that we were understanding each other.

The fine was 20 lats, some 30€. We just had 10 lats in cash and it looked very clear to me what the guy wanted, so I told him: “we only have 10, for you if you want”. Charlie looked at me starting to panic and asked me: “are you going to bribe him? what if he sends us to jail?”, probably thinking about the turkish jail in “Midnight Express”. But almost immediately the policeman replied: “you come”. We went between two cars so nobody could see us, I gave him the 10 lats note and he gave me the fine ripped in two. He said “Good evening, bye” (good manners are essential in business) and left calmly. I was not very happy about the rip off, but took it as a sort of adventure and did not bother that much.

JORDAN 2007

Fran and I had been 3 days driving around Jordan and the trip had not started that well. Before jumping on the plane Fran had a hamburger in a kebab place in Stockwell (something widely considered an extreme sport) and he spent the flight puking. After that he injured his foot in the roman ruins of Jerash and could hardly walk (or eat). And the rental car we got was a (very dirty) real piece of junk.

With that baggage we reached the top of Mount Nebo, supposedly where Moses saw the Promised Land from (not sure about the standards in those times but all we could see was Dryland). When we were descending towards the Dead Sea we took a very sharp and steep double turn and, despite going very slow, the car lost traction in the rear wheels, spun and crashed frontal against a rock in the road shoulder.

Once recovered from the sudden shock and realising we were fine, we checked the car: the front part was badly damaged and hanging like in a twisted smile. The car was not going to continue the trip with us and we were not going to miss it that much at all.

We called the rental company and they told us not to worry: they were sending a new car as we were speaking and they would take care of the crashed one (thanks fully comprehensive insurance!). Although it was only 11am the sun was starting to hit hard, it was getting hot and we had crashed in an area with not many places to find shelter. Finally we saw a very small hut and we got some shadow from its walls while awaiting for the new car to arrive. It seems that the local schools had the lunch break at that time (or maybe the school day had finished) and lots of kids that were walking back home stopped to take a look at the car (generally they found it hilarious) and practise some basic english with us. We were not at our most sociable moment but we were handling things ok in the beginning. But after repeating endlessly the same dialogues we started to feel like Bender when he dreams

The guy from the agency, Mohammed, showed up at 12:30 and the new car was in better shape and much cleaner that the one we had just kindly sent to the garage. Good. Once he made sure we were doing ok he told us that according to Jordanian laws we had to wait for the police to register the incident, and for that we had to be present. Not good. He reported the crash to the police while we retreated to the tiny shadow as now the sun was really strong. At least the kids were either back to school or resting at home.

The policeman arrived almost 4 hours after being called (!!) and we were really fed up by the time he made his triumphant entry: he jumped off his motorbike, did not even look at us, looked at the car, looked at the turn where we lost control and then turned to Mohammed to say something. What he said was more or less: “I am pretty sure they were driving too fast, I will give them a speeding ticket”. All that took less that 3 minutes.

With bloodshot eyes and foam in our mouths we asked Mohammed to ask the gentle policeman what the hell was that and if he was just trying to rip us off. Visibly uncomfortable, poor Mohammed faced us, giving his back to the policeman and said: “here is Jordan is better not to play around with the police, better pay the fine as he says”. Short and sweet.

The policeman kept Fran’s driving license to make sure we did not run away and asked us to go to the police station to pay (20JD). We had to leave his license behind (they gave it back to us at the end of the trip) and I had to drive the rest of the trip (Fran was not that keen in any case).

I had never been fined for something hypothetical, even more with the police not even being there, but I imagine there is always a first time for everything. I must say that it was the turning point for the trip. After that all went smoothly and we had a great time.

To be continued…