The Worst Checkpoint In Colombo
Colombo police station, paying a ticket
Lately the cops are out in force, parked around corners and waving people down. This is not necessarily bad. They’re not on checkpoint duty and it would be better to enforce some better driving. In many cases, however, that’s not exactly what they’re doing. Take the Green Path checkpoint for example. They’re basically fishing for bribes. My revenue license was expired and I knew it. Whether they’re allowed to pull you over for nothing is one thing, but they do and I was doing something wrong. So I asked them for a ticket. The guy takes my stuff, hems and haws, talks about how I’ll need to go to magistrate’s court (I don’t) and how difficult it is (it isn’t). I just shrug and say that’s OK. He gets confused, hands me my stuff back and asks me for a ‘small favor’. I smile and drive off. It took me another week to get my revenue license, in the course of which I got asked for bribes about three times before finally getting a ticket.
In the past I’ve been scared of cops and the ticket system and I have paid bribes. Once, at the Green Path checkpoint, a cop actually got in the car with me and drove to the bank because I had no cash on me. This was wrong and weird. I regret paying bribes and I just don’t do it anymore. The legal system actually kinda works. You give your license, they give you a ticket. You take the ticket to the cop shed, get a fine. You take the fine to the post office, get a receipt. Take the receipt back to the cop shed, get your license. If you get let all the paperwork gets shifted to court (which sucks) but it still works. The fines aren’t that high and I assume the money is going into the government directly, which I’m OK with. It’s better than a bribe.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
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Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
mmm…that’s a typical situation in many parts of the country, really ! This may be due to the reason that cops don’t have much work to do nowadays…!
If your’s is a case in the capital city where every driver knows the importance of road rules, how do you call the cops who expect the under-aged boys in villages who ride for the thrill of it, to carry licence ?! This too happens not only in main roads, but by-roads in the east where the cops roam with confidence that there’s no chance for an occational ‘hand granide throw’ like the past ! At the end they simply bribe…
Firstly I think you are absolutely right but I subscribe to a different view point. Which is that I like to bribe the cops. I think they are highly underpaid and unappreciated. I had some relations who were cops a long time back and have witnessed firsthand the daily struggles they go through to make ends meet. They are trampled on and abused by all and sundry. Even if they do their job right they are transferred if it does not please the masters in power. I am talking about the chaps who man the checkpoints not the higher ups. If we give the money to the government it just goes to finance a bigger and more corrupt establishment. To help another fat politician to buy another BMW and cut into us on the road. Personally I thinking bribing a police constable is the lesser of two evils.
This would have a theoretical point if the traffic cops financed free education, free health-care and everything out of their pockets. However much nicer it is to hang on to the cliche’s of corrupt government, its still the government that runs the country and spend money for the people. It’s not like all fine money goes to some politician’s or big police guy’s bank account.
The point of fining, at least in theory, is that your pay the society (albeit indirectly) for something you did wrong to it. By breaking most of the traffic rules, you are doing something wrong to the society and possibly putting some other person in danger who isn’t necessarily a traffic cop. There is a law against drunk driving because you can kill someone on the road, who isn’t necessarily a traffic cop. So paying a cop is cheating to get away. That’ not any “lesser” of an evil than paying ransom to a “poor” thug.
In any case, there isn’t a bribe for drunk driving anymore. Not even for those damn lawyers and law students with their so called “get out of jail” card. It’s straight to court/15,000 bucks now. And that’s ok. We don’t have a thing called a permanent driving record associated with insurance rates here. If we did, people out there might become better drivers.
I’ve never gotten a DYI here. I’m curious is there a minimum blood alcohol level that cops tolerate here, what does that balloon really test
oops! i meant to say DUI
Dilan, I know people who’ve recently bribed cops to get off the DUI charge. The larger court fine just makes the bribe larger.
Dodo, yup, of course there’s a minimum level breathalyser test. But they test you only if they suspect you’re drunk, and that’s done at the station. They just sniff your breath at the VCP. But believe me, if they decide to breathalyse you, they’ll make sure it comes up positive ;)
Hey Dilan, as far as I know, there still is a bribe that gets you off drunk driving…. Just offer the cop a higher amount than before! Did that myself last week and it still works as good as the earlier bribes did :)
As for the breathalyzer, the cops are legally allowed to ask you to blow into the balloon just once, but I have personally been asked to blow into it a second time after the cop deflated it cos the thing didn’t turn green on me! The fines were pretty paltry at the time, but now with the risk of a suspended license, I would certainly raise hell about it!
Also heard somewhere that if the unit doesn’t turn positive, the cost of it is taken out of the cop’s pay. I don’t know how accurate that is, but it may account for how careful they are about making sure they can smell the booze on you before taking you in.
Yes that is accurate, hence why they do everything they can to try and make it show you’re over the limit. You are not supposed to blow in to it more than once, and you are supposed to blow only ONE long breath, as opposed to the several short ones they make you do here (or rather, the lack of instruction given here). Several short breaths will make it turn colour no matter if you haven’t had any alcohol. Too bad they don’t bring down those digital breathalysers.
Sorry this is just a lame excuse for people in Sri Lanka continuously taking the easy way out and allowing crooks and criminals from the top down to get away with MURDER!
hey indi,
lately i get the impression that u r constantly justifying the gvmnt in anything they do….why?
btw, the fine system is absolute shite, imagine you get copped on a sundaymorning in jaffna, but you live in hambantota. post office closed. you have to travel back to jaffna to collect you dl. or that you’re on the way to the airport for a month long trip (do you lose your license after a month??), or its past post office hours…. this is in itself conducive to bribing.
moreover, what kind of insane and dumb regulation allows the gvmnt to TAKE AWAY your license because of a traffic offense? it should not be allowed without court order to remove my license from my pocket unless its just to prove i have one!!
plus, ill tell you how useless they are, the other day a crazy bus driver smashed a lorry’s mirror on galle road, i overtook the ESCAPING bus and stopped at wellawatta checkpoint to report the number of the bus and license plates, so they could stop the bus, becasue it had run away from the scene of accident. the assholes just watched the bus go by… thay looked at me like i was insane to report smthng like that.so i said use your fucking radios and catch him at bamba checkpoint! you think they managed that? no way… just imagine a car full of terrorists shooting their way up/down galle road….so all this security is just a fake and an illegal pain in the ass(remember the court ruling to remove them???)
as for the cops themselves i have no respect for them, if you dont pay they dont even INVESTIGATE serious crimes, ive been there. they also use police vehicles and bikes for private school service, and the kids go with no helmet on the back of the bike. you have to be kidding….
You don’t have to go to Jaffna to pick up your license. You have the option to do the entire procedure via registered post from Colombo or wherever you are based. I agree about taking away the license, but that is supposed to change once the new licenses with working magnetic stripe are implemented fully and the police have the necessary scanners. (The new licenses are already being issued and look great).
the idea is deterrence – the harder it is to get your license and the more hassle involved, the less likely you will be to commit the offence in the first place. so, rubbish, if the system makes you go to jaffna from hambantota to collect your license, let that be a lesson to your sorry ass.
Tikiri Remind me of those JVP buggers back in the days, they said the same thing about minor offences and cut off people’s heads and display them on sticks. I said why the system let him go to jaffna, kill em all!
Hey rubbish
That’s a really good point – indi’s very pro government, these days isn’t he? I think someone has taken issue with where indi was and what he was doing on the 26th of Jan 2010 and sat him down for a bit of a heart to heart…
With regards to cops and bribing, this is like “love and marriage, horse and carriage” in Sri Lanka – the two go hand in hand. The Sri Lanka Police? Well lets just put it this way – every time I visit a Police Station (which is a lot these days) I can’t help but smile when I see the banner “towards a people friendly, prestigious police service”.
They are anything but people friendly (you should see the way they treat and talk to innocent villagers) and I see nothing prestigious about being a member of this gallant force (jarawa kana yakku is the common perception, I believe).
More often than not, the cops you meet in the street are just uneducated bullies on a permanent power trip, feeding on the fear instilled by their uniforms.
It is better not to bribe. It makes for a saner more honest society. Daily bribing is a grind. It wears you down even if you don’t realize it. I hope more people take your stance Indi. Way to go.
Good point. But IMHO, bribery is not the worst evil when it comes to law enforcement in SL. The use of violence (and the acceptance of beating up someone as an investigative tool, ought to bother us much more). I have clear childhood memories (going back to 1973) of cops beating up a pick-pocket at the Bandarawela bus station. The chap’s cry “haamudhuruwanE gahanna epa” is something I can still hear! Last week I was reading about the incident in Mattakkuliya where cops arrested a suspect drugs dealer and apparently beat him up; the villagers then stormed the police station, after which an identification parade was held and suspects pointed to by hooded informers were promptly beaten up. How was this dealt with? The officers in question were transferred to other stations! If this is behavior during “normal” times, one can comfortably extrapolate and work out what happened during the suppression of the JVP and the war in the North.
Well, well, well, now you guys realize how much more Tamil people have been harassed.
You were just given a foretaste of the treatment the police and armed forces meted out to Tamils
When law enforcement officers don’t abide by the law then what can we say.
The entire Police force needs to be rehabilitated and reorganized!