Well I got a story for you guys.
2 days ago I get a phone call from my friend Tara who arrived in my province from Bangkok.
She says "Hey, I am at the bus station, come and pick me up!"
I looked at my watch 15:30. I thought she has go to be kidding me. I don't like riding in the city at that time. Especially since I only had a Suzuki Mate (3 gears) and my home is 14km the opposite direction to pick up any real machines. So I proceed to head to the bus station.
When I arrived I had only 1 helmet and she didn't bring a helmet with her. By now the place is crawling with police officers. I decide to take a short cut through the bus station to avoid the police. However that ended very quickly. A motorcycle pulls up beside me snatches the keys from my ignition. I was about to swing a fist towards this individual when I realized it was a Police officer.
He asks for my licence, so I give it to him with a nice Government ID along with it. He looks at it and pauses then after a minute or so of thinking he starts filling in the ticket. Now I can see that he was thinking whether or not I knew how this ID worked. Assuming that I am foreign he probably considered that I didn't know and continued filling in the ticket. I asked him for his name and superiors contact number, and he said he couldn't give that information out. But he did point me towards the police station.
After a short ride on the Sorng Taew, we got to the station and the officer behind the desk asked for my licence. So I slung out the Government ID and the drivers licence and waited for him to tear the ticket up. However he starts saying that it is going to be 400 baht for the fine. I then again pointed to the Government ID and pointed to my watch as it is nearing 16:00. So he asks me how long I had been in Thailand for. (Whatever the hell that has to do with anything). He then says to my friend that he will charge us 100 baht instead of 400 because I work for the Government. She was about to pay and I said
"No! This is not good enough. Translate the ticket for me".
The ticket says I was going the wrong way. Hmm, wait a minute the officer who pulled me over was also going the wrong way. The ticket says my motorcycle had no clutch. Again, the officers motorcycle had no clutch (didn't even know that was a fscking offence!). The ticket says I had a pillion passenger with no helmet. So did the officer who pulled me over. He had his girl friend on the back of the moped with no helmet.
I picked up my phone and told them to wait. I called my friend and had a small conversation like "Hey, how are you? Whats going on? What to have dinner tonight?"
After the phone call I said "I want a photo copy of the ticket. I also want the name of the traffice cop, your name, the superiors name. I want his phone number. I want the time that it is now written on the photocopy with your signature. I will take this up to the next level for wasting my time."
The officers face goes a very bright red he scribbles out the 100baht written on the back of the ticket. Signs his name and says to forget about it and go back and get my motorcycle.
That was just insane. I have never been pushed around as though I am stupid by Thai officers like this before. Might not have been their impression but when people tend to make look like I am a dork or think that I don't understand, I become stubborn. I dislike people taking trying to take advantage of me. The on top I have to explain my abscence from work for the last hour. Heh, I thought my superiors were going to explode down at the police station with anger, they were almost reaching for the phone.
