Quote:
Originally Posted by giallo
That's a reasonable question, except that I'm pretty much one of the most law-abiding guys you'll meet.
I used a bouncer and a cop as an example because these are people that I never have to deal with in SH, but back home they seem to have a lot of influence in my life whether I'm looking for it or not.
A couple of examples:
When I was back in Vancouver two winters ago, I had to go to Ginger with my bro and his fiance for her birthday. She lived close, so we walked there. I had just cracked a beer and decided to take it with me (ok, so I'm not completely law-abiding, but I've been in Asia for awhile and the no-open-alcohol-in-public rule slipped my mind). We get to the artificially long line and immediately I'm grabbed by my collar and pulled out of the queue by some douche-bag bouncer. He grabs my beer and tells me that there isn't a chance in hell that I'm going in. So my night was ruined because I decided to a have drink on the sidewalk. Fun.
I was driving with my friend one late night in Kelowna when we came to a traffic light that seemed to be broken. It was around 3 in the morning and this red light was not changing. After about four minutes my friend decided to slowly pull out, look both ways and roll through. Next thing we know red and blue lights are flashing behind us. This cop must have known that this light was a great way to make her quota because she cut us no slack. Actually, she wouldn't even listen to us despite our reasonable argument. In the end, my friend got a ticket for running a red light and she also fined him for not having his insurance registered in Vancouver.
It's events like these that make me really bitter towards home. Hopefully, things will change.
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I've only been in Shanghai for a little bit, but I wouldn't complain about BC traffic cops - in my entire driving career in BC, I've never been ticketed for anything!
But, one time in Shanghai, in the span of a couple hours, we got two traffic tickets.
The first was a no left-turn sign in one alley which was tucked behind a corner, and way up high, so that unless you were looking skyward rather than, you know, actually watching the sidewalk in front of you for pedestrians, you wouldn't see it. Apparently the cop knew about this sign though, and was having fun writing up tickets for everyone who turned left out of that alley.
The second was for exiting an elevated freeway, where apparently the right lane turns into a bus lane by the time it hits street level. We did not know this, and travelled a whole half-block in it before realizing it, at which point it was too late and a cop pulled us over (another strategically located cop to be sure).
So meeting a quota of traffic tickets? I see cops in Shanghai pulling over person-after-person (sometimes several at a time), doing nothing but writing tickets. Sure, there is some of that in BC, but not to the same extent.
The key difference though is the corruption in Shanghai. It was blood-boiling seeing the officer wave hello to car-after-car also using the bus lane, who the guy apparently knew or maybe they were flashing some kind of ID or something, while he was writing us other poor schmucks tickets!
