On the ineffective traffic authority

The traffic authority is fond of rules. They love rules because they love “enforcing” them. Driving around Sana’a, one is overcome by a sense of amazement at the great authority that these traffic officers wield—we stop, go, slow down, apologize profusely, and pay bribes, all at the officers’ behest. 
Last Thursday evening, an employee of the Yemen Observer was driving home from work, tired and hungry, when he inadvertently passed through a red light. He survived the mistake unharmed because there were no cars within a 100-meter radius of that particular intersection, but, instantly, he was accosted by an angry, pistol-bearing traffic officer and a police officer with a Kalashnikov who seemed to consider this breach in road rules a major threat to national security. The two men entered our employee’s car, instructing him to drive. 

Our employee was in awe of their strict enforcement of the law and their selfless dedication to keeping the streets safe for all drivers. As the three of them drove through the streets, the soldier and the traffic officer informed him of the grave financial consequences of his mistake. Their calculations had reached YR50 thousand when they told him to stop the car. “So, what shall we do about this?” the traffic officer said. “We don’t want you to have to pay such an expensive fine because you seem like a nice guy,” said the police officer.

Ultimately, the problem was solved when the armed authorities accepted a sum of money from our employee and left his car, dividing the cash evenly between them and stuffing it into their pockets. Like a prostate exam, the interaction was a standard and relatively painless procedure, but our employee felt violated. But he had not been pick-pocketed or threatened at gunpoint; he willingly produced the cash and handed it to the police officer to avoid a steep fine. He was complicit in this crooked procedure. 

Corruption is easy to criticize. Like global warming and child abuse, it’s difficult to find avid supporters to argue in favor of corruption, but why is it so easy to find people who act as if corruption is a requisite of their job title? Because, for traffic police, it practically is.

Traffic officers are paid between YR15 thousand and YR20 thousand per month, with which one could barely feed his dog, let alone support a family. By paying traffic officers so little money, the government effectively encourages them to demand bribes from citizens. They essentially employ people without having to really pay them, which seems to work well for everyone—careless drivers get by without having to pay major fines, the unemployment rate is slightly lowered by employing traffic officers, and fewer people honk their horns at busy intersections—but driving in Yemen is still insanely dangerous and the traffic authority is completely ineffective in making the country any safer for drivers.

If the government was truly concerned about road safety, it would enforce the speed limits on freeways, stop young children from driving semi trucks around the country, and repair severely neglected roads, for starters. But instead they plant men wearing berets and guns at intersections to blow whistles and wave their hands, threatening drivers with massive fines until we agree to pay their salaries.

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