Did I really do it?

Pre-read warning: Let me apologise in advance if there are spelling and grammar mistakes, and bad English generally in this post as I was still angry with what happened to me last weekend. I just wanted to vent my anger and get it out of my system, so what are some mistakes here and there, huh?

I was driving along Jalan Tutong when I realised that the police was carrying out an operation to catch traffic offenders. I was pretty sure I was not breaking any traffic rules, but I was quite shocked when I was asked to stop. The policeman asked to see my driving license and my ID, but did not say anything much. I found it odd that the policeman was not telling me what my traffic offence was. After a while, I broke the silence and asked him what I did wrong. He proceeded to tell me that I had run through a red light. So I thought, “Hang on a minute, I know the dangers of running through red light and I would not do such thing!” He explained that some policemen were stationed at the junction of Telanai Link Road-Jalan Tutong to see if anyone broke any traffic rules and they caught me running through the red light. I argued that as I was passing the junction the traffic light was yellow and I was not technically breaking any rule. He went on to explain that the traffic light turned red while my car was on the yellow box. I found it a bit absurd that they adjudged someone have broken rule when the yellow light turned when they were moving.

The policemen asked me to acknowledge the compund notice, which said that ‘tidak berhenti semasa lampu merah menyala (did not stop when the traffic light turned red)’. I refused to sign off the notice and contested the alleged offence as I believed that I had not done what the notice said. The policeman said that I could contest the allegation in court but I told him that the court would actually follow what the notice said, regardless how much I would protest the allegation. I told him too that I would lose the case right away because of what he wrote on the notice. We argued for a good 10 minutes and I was trembling while doing so. The policeman told me that they caught me doing the offense on camera. I got bitter and started to point to drivers of cars passing by who did not wear safety belts or talked on the mobile phone without any handsfree device.

Eventually, a fellow driver took me aside and advised me to sign the notice off, as I was creating quite a scene and ‘it did not look too nice’. I told him in principle I was not going to sign it. Because it thought it would useless to argue much more, I signed off the notice and was told to either pay the fine of BND50 within a fortnight or I could contest the allegation in court. It turned out that I should not have done so, because as I signed the compound notice, I was considered to have acknowledged and admitted the allegation. I asked a lawyer friend for advice and he told me that the police might have a case against me.

I am still bitter and feel aggrieved that I got fined for this alleged traffic offense, which I did not believe I did. How come you can still see many cars driven at excessive speed, heavily modified cars are still driven around, drivers not wearing seat belts, drivers chatting away or sms’ing while driving, children not being strapped up in seat belts and even worse sitting on the drivers’ laps, cars which can be considered as unroadworthy on the road and cars with obvious violation of road traffic rules, but did not get stopped? Where is the fairness in that?