FameLine Syndicate
Saturday, April 17, 2004
THE POLITICS OF A TRAFFIC VIOLATION IN THE UNITED STATESAfter exactly 15 months of living and working in the United States of America as an IT professional from South Africa, I had my first run-in with the law on the streets of Fort Lauderdale, Florida one beautiful, humid summer morning. | |
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This encounter was a revealing insight into the laws and dynamics of American society. I had rushed my shower, grabbed my keys and quickly fired up my sleek company car, a silver Nissan Exterra, pulling out of 711 Bayshore drive towards the famous coastal secondary road, the AIA. Although tired I always enjoyed seeing the calm ruler edge of the Atlantic Ocean in the morning while listening to the shock jock, Howard Stern, someone I had come to enjoy despite his reputation as being morally corrupt and a symptom of declining values in American radio and society. I was within striking distance of the final stop street that joins with the AIA when I heard the famous whiiiiiirrrrrr of the Florida Police siren. My mood sank as I saw the flashing blue and red lights of the motorcycle and the reflecting sunlight off the police officer's silver sunglasses in the rear view mirror. I recognized the bike and officer as a regular enforcer of traffic violations in this particular area between Sunrise Blvd and Las Olas Blvd, one of the most popular tourist strips in the United States. I immediately flicked my indicators and pulled off the road awaiting the inevitable questions. I also killed the Howard Stern station that was at the moment ranting about FCC regulations preventing him from interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Governor hopeful, unless he also gave equal airtime to all the 10-plus candidates. According to the FCC, unless you delivered one daily news broadcast you had to offer each candidate an equal opportunity to appear on your 'entertainment' show. However, Howard Stern, was only interested in one candidate: Schwarzenegger. What made it worse for Howard Stern was the fact his co-host Robin Quivers, did actually present a daily news summary on his show but the FCC ruled that this was not 'real news'. One learned quickly that red tape covered all parts of American life and even celebrities were smothered in it. As the officer approached I realized that I too was about to come face to face with the layered laws of American Society and that I was in a very,veryy bad situation. I realized that I was without essential vehicle documentation that ironically I had been in possession of the day before. On that day I had attempted to register and undertake the written exam and driving test to qualify for my Florida State license, but the endless queue and shifty eyes of some of the other applicants made me flee the scene. The Florida State License is one of the first steps in becoming politically and economically acceptable in the United States. My South African license did give me some credibility but alas I had left it at the office and all I had in my glove compartment was a grey, deformed international driver's license which looked like it had been put together by school kid in a hurry. Further, I had not yet memorized my social security number, which is really the pivotal number in American society and opens doors into future financial tools such as credit card applications and home mortgages. It was also vital in the eyes of the law and elevated you to a traceable statistic in their vast centralized database. If you add on top of this the growing resentment towards foreign workers in the United States and the calls for sterner immigration laws, you could maybe understand why I was feeling a bit paranoid and nervous about my first encounter with the American law. I have always had an internal fear of authority. Maybe this is what causes someone to automatically vote Democrat in America or Labour in the United Kingdom. I searched for an analogy in South Africa but found the race and economic implications too disturbing to find a black and white answer. At this point, I was still struggling to work out what I had done wrong as the cop-with-the-silver-sunglasses slowly made his way to my window and in a low even - almost bored - voice asked the inevitable: "May I see your driver's license, sir?" "Ahh, officer, I don't actually have a Florida State License yet, but I, umm, I plan to get one soon." I felt uncomfortable and my voice had a nervous edge to it. I was glad I had sunglasses on; I felt my eyes made me look guilty by default. He looked up from his pad for the first time. "Do you have any form of identification on you - what about your social security number"? I explained that it was at my office and I had not yet memorized it due to only recently qualifying for the H1-B1 Visa. I reluctantly handed him my worn-out international license. He turned it over, sideways and upside down a few times. Even with his silver sunglasses on I could see blank look spreading over his face. He was registering that I was foreigner without any local identification. He proceeded to ask me for my personal details. I asked what I done wrong. "You went through a stop street. I am writing you up a moving violation." "Ummm, am I in a lot of trouble officer," I asked nonchalantly. I was still trying to digest the implications of this 'moving violation' on my visa status and car insurance. Why did he not just say I had gone through a stop sign? He paused for effect. "You will be fined $70 and required to take a four-hour driving school exam. If you decline to take the exam you will accumulate points on your license which shall affect your insurance rating." "If you decide to challenge this in court, you have 30 days in which to notify the court of your intentions." After some confusion over my driver's tag numbers, he opened my door and looked inside joinerery to note the number. I thought this was ingenious, one of those Americanism's, like turning the light switch up, instead of down, to turn on the light. "In the future, please be careful about moving violations. Children play in this area and you need to be more careful." I nodded, feeling extremely guilty and made appeasing remarks to the departing cop-with-silver-sunglasses. I watched him in the rear view mirror swing back to his customary hiding place in the cul-de-sac to wait for the next unsuspecting tourist from Chicago, Canada or France. I had 90 days in which to complete the four-hour driving school exam to avoid a negative insurance rating. I discovered that this did not mean I had to pitch up for live classes. I could take the class over the Internet. A Goggle search revealed millions of potential online classes. One I tried only offered eight-hour classes. This was for repeat offenders. The more I looked at all the available options via Google the more I realized that this was big business. Whole industries were being built on traffic offences. Eventually I found a well-put together site and proceeded to read the stipulations. The instructions said I had to spend one hour on each of the four chapters. At the end of four hours I would have to complete a short online quiz and would then qualify for a certificate that would allow me to avoid points on my future license. The great thing I discovered about this test had to do with flexibility. You could log out at any stage and return to the same page at a later date. My paranoia was again raised while filling out the personal details section of the registration form Some of the questions I found disturbing. Here are a few: 1. Have you ever visited New York? (I had.) 2. Are you an American Citizen? (No.) 3. Have you lived in Florida your whole life? (No.) 4. Have you ever been to Europe? (Yes.) Now, questions two and three I considered reasonable, but questions 1 and 4 made me feel positively nervous. I mean, what did visiting Europe have to do with anything? This was obviously another tracing mechanism for that giant, centralized database that sits in Washington and looks for terrorist patterns. The site claimed that these security questions merely enabled them to confirm your identity when you logged back into the system at a later date. I was not convinced. I eventually completed the four-hour class over the course of four days and discovered some interesting facts along the way. The United States has the highest incidences of teenage driving deaths in the world largely due to their lower driving age and easy access to vehicles. Most accidents occur between twilight and dawn and a large majority of collisions involve hitting a tree rather than some other object. The day after completing the class I read an article by a local journalist calling for more traffic blocks along the I-95, the national highway that connects Miami to Maine. He was sick and tired of the reckless driving of Floridian Citizens on the I-95 and the resultant accidents that caused injuries and long delays in homebound traffic. I thought that perhaps that the cop-with-the-silver sunglasses should immediately be dispatched to the I-95 to help solve this problem. However, what I found most interesting about the article was that while the journalist called for stricter highway enforcement he was equally mortified by the current draconian security measures at national airports. What really raised his ire was the fact that his 75-year-old mother, who suffered from osteoporosis, and, was confined to a wheelchair, was singled out for a 10-minute body check by the Fort Lauderdale Security Personnel. This was after having being cooped up in a traffic jam outside the airport as security staff programmatically stopped each and every single car. Needless, to say, I plan to be a lot more prepared with my documentation the next time I drive along the I-95 or fly out of Fort Lauderdale airport en route to South Africa. -- ENDS -- Jason Stevens currently works as web developer in the United States and moonlights as a freelance journalist for international publications. He spends a lot of time on Fort Lauderdale beach dreaming about the perfect waves of Elands Bay and the white sands of Llandudno beach in Cape Town. References: Lawrence A. Johnson, Classical Music Writer, Sun-Sentinel 'National Security begins at home not on the interstate'. 1500 WORDS; 8, 443 characters with spaces All rights reserved. Copyright @ Jason Stevens, Fameline Syndicate. This article may only be reprinted, reproduced or disributed with the consent of the owner. |
