- Bribe Fighter
- 10 years ago
- 3584 views
So many people gets pulled up everyday by Cops at some or the other…
So many people gets pulled up everyday by Cops at some or the other traffic signal and end up paying astraunamical fines. Or paying bribes. Same way, once I was driving my two wheeler on a road and got pulled up by a Cop. He asked for papers. I had my license and the RC book. I handed them over to him. Unfortunately, I did not have my PUC certificate with me. And he asked me to park my vehicle aside.
So, I did as he asked me to do. It's a general tendancy of a person that whenever one is at fault, one wants the other person one is dealing with to be corrupt, so that the matter isn't dragged much and is buried down under the weightage of the bribe. He went on to catch another people who were not wearing helmets and also those who were speeding down the road. I was standing there waiting for him to come and proceed further. There was 2-3 Cops more other than the one who caught me.
He came to me with a receipt and asked me to pay 400 rupees. I was shocked. 400 bucks?! Mister, I live in a hostel and I would have a decent meal for 3 days in that amount. My first reaction was to settle down the event with some lumpsum amount and get away with it. I asked him to negotiate and he denied relunctantly. He was busy dealing with other people at the same time. I was filled with a sense of guilt and realised that what I was asking to negotiate was pure blunder. Ultimately I realised that what I was considering negotiation was actually a euphemism for corruption and instantly asked him to give me the receipt. Later on, he became greedy asked me to pay 300 rupees and told that he wouldn't make a receipt. Thanks to my cognitive system, I reluctantly denied and paid the entire amount and did my part.
I didn't do anything much here. I simply did what was right. But, apart from not paying the bribe, I would want to suggest an amendment here.
Most of the people tend to pay bribe because the fines are astraunamically high and it's almost impossible for a lower middle class person to pay. And ultimately, they tend to 'negotiate' with the cop and pay less amount and feel proud about themselves for saving money. Instead of this, if the police department chooses to moderate the amount of the fines for let's say '100' rupees instead of '400', people might think before paying 50 rupees to the Cop after the negotiations and might as well pay 50 rupees more and take the receipt. The solution is feasible because a person wouldn't pay even 50 bucks everyday and would keep the documents one's self from thereafter. Plus, we need to increase the awareness in the people. Most of the people around the country wear helmet to save money but for safety. And 100 rupee note is considered a legal license. Also, it's not always the police officer who demands the bribe but the people who get caught. So, blaming the police everytime isn't reasonable either. If we can make this happen, we might as well decrease the corruption by at least 5% if not more.