Licensed to Drive

My first traffic ticket in my life!

"It was harder to get my driver's license than to get pregnant and give birth."--Julie Bowen

I got a traffic ticket a few months back, because I got caught breaking the law.*

It started with a harebrained idea to avoid a police checkpoint, because I knew they'd ask for my driver's license.   I do have a legal USA driver's license, but Zambian law states (somewhere) that you must get a Zambian license within three months.  Considering it had been nearly 1 1/2 years and I still didn't have one, I'd  be fined (and rightly so).  Granted...I could have lied.  I could have told the officer that I'd only been in Zambia for 2 months and HE WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN.

But I didn't lie, because it is wrong to lie, and my children and my PARENTS were with me.  That's when I made a U-turn before the roadblock and avoided the whole situation completely.

Come to find out, that's illegal and WAY worse than lacking a Zambian driver's license.  The officer in the unmarked police car scolded me and fined me $100 for "dangerous driving".

Just then my friend Megan drove by us.  I flagged her down, because she's bragged about getting pulled over twenty-something times and never paying a fine.  I asked her to work some of her magic.

She tried all of the tricks in the book:  explaining that we were going to an orphanage (which was true), pleading in the local language, and telling them that we'd pay our fine at the police station later.  The officer smiled and said, "I'm sorry, I'll have to impound your car until you pay the fine."

Then came the ever-so-subtle question:  How much are you willing to pay?

This is the cue to slip the officer $10.  Which, to be completely honest, I'd have been delighted to do.

"I'm sorry, we are Christians.  We don't pay bribes," Megan apologized.  And that's when my ticket went from $10 back to $100.

"Ok, then give me $50," he said and issued us the official receipt.

Megan chipped in $10, we paid the fine and got the heck out of there. 

This nonsense encouraged me to buck up and get my license.  The dilemma was my provisional license was expired, so I needed special authorization for my temporary license.  Seems straightforward, but there is no straightforward in Zambia. 

This is the actual prayer I prayed as we walked into one of the obscure branches of the Department of Licensing:

"God, please give us a female officer who is in a good mood today and will forgive us for our trespasses and issue us a driver's license for no penalty." 

He answered my prayer to a T and Eric and I went home with our temporary driver's licences. A few weeks later I got my final license (which was at a 4th DOL location in Lusaka.  Sheesh...talk about the mother of all scavenger hunts to get something done. Just saying...)

I now carry my Zambian license like a badge of honor. You can imagine my disappointment when I'd passed through several police checkpoints over the following weeks, and not a single officer asked to see it.

One day I'd had enough, so I begged an officer to please, please, please ask to see my license, because I was dying to show it to someone.  She smiled and obliged. 

She then thanked me and let me go on my merry way.





*One day I'll write about the 3 times I've been mistakenly pulled over for "speeding".