Tag Archives: traffic fine

Legal Again

Procrastination R Us. Eighteen months after my driver’s licence card expired, I was refused a hired car, the first real consequence of the expiry. Plus fines in Hazyview, Mpumalanga and Port Alfred, Eastern Cape. And a stern admonition near Ondangwa in Namibia: ‘You must go back to South Africa and get your new licence and then come back to your holiday in Namibia. You cannot drive like this!’ This prompted me to finally move my butt, but only after meandering back to Durbs via the Namib Naukluft, Upington, Kimberley, Makala National Park south of Kimberley, and the Vrystaat.

And damn! Less than two hours after being dropped off at the gate at Rossburgh by friend Bruce, I was done. Easy and pleasant. All that dodging, delaying and avoiding was unnecessary. And the fine for being so long overdue was . . zero. No fine, no fuss. Only friendliness. One day I’m going to consider giving up my chronic procrastination.

I’m legal again. And my new mugshot is not much worse than the old one, just a lot more forehead.

~~oo0oo~~

Six weeks later I went to collect. Done in twenty minutes. Would have been ten if I’d known by osmosis what the lady told me when I asked after being in the wrong queue for the first ten minutes: ‘You must go to the window.‘

Red: Where I applied – Yellow: ‘The window’
– ‘the window’ –

Ama Criminal Record

I was on the phone to an ancient friend as I neared Port Alfred when a lady invited me to join her at the side of the road. I did so with alacrity. She was a traffic gendarme in Ndlambe. The ticket she wrote tells me I was pulled over in Voortrekker Street ‘opposite the Lunch Box.’

May I see your drivers licence? asked the friendly lady in the every-stitch-on-duty uniform. ‘Sure,’ said I, ‘You will notice it has expired.’

Tut tut, she tutted me and wrote out that ticket. Five hundred bucks cos I “Drove a M/V on a Public Road with Expired Driver’s Licence.” Not quite true, as my driver’s licence is for life. What she meant was my proof of having a licence had expired. The card had expired. That was true. The driver on the other hand, he was still fresh.

I forgot about it till today and so now I have just paid it online. I hope the good people of Ndlambe municipality accept the cash, as I see I am past the deadline date!

I don’t want a criminal record! I was reminded of such often on our journeys, as it’s one of Jessie’s songs she plays as we buzz along the byways of SA.

Ama Criminal Record – by Blaq Diamond. Long before the song is over – it’s a long one – I usually ask Jess: ‘Earphones please my love!!’