Too many staple holes? Bad driver!

The darak have really taken their new traffic law diligence to heart. Every single non-camouflage wearing darakeh that I've seen since Saturday has either been ticketing someone or at least holding a ticket book, looking for someone to bust.

Paying the fine associated with a traffic ticket in Lebanon has historically been a torturous process. It usually involves spending the better portion of a morning navigating the halls of one of our country's numerous administrative buildings, roaming from office to office for a signature here, a form filled there. At some point a visit to a nearby shop is required to buy a government stamp. The process usually ends with the offender feeling frustrated, disgusted, a little tired and somewhat violated. I can't imagine that paying a civil fine in medieval Europe would have been so arduous.

What is the reason for this? As far as I can tell, it is a combination of bad management and corruption. Bad management in the sense that the procedures required to ensure that everything is recorded properly and that the fine is ultimately paid are convoluted and extremely inefficient. Corruption in the sense that there are more government jobs than are strictly needed (our head administrators, for some reason or other, cannot or will not streamline the number of positions under their jurisdictions) so an inefficient system needs to be put in place to give all these people something to do.

This forces the rest of us to wade through a giant pile of red tape to get even the most basic government-related task done, including but not limited to paying traffic fines, passport issue/renewal, anything and everything to do with customs, anything and everything to do with the military, and the list goes on. These hurdles to getting things done must have an impact on the productivity of the country as a whole. In the case of traffic violations, however, they are a blessing in disguise.

I, for one, am not as annoyed at having to part with the L.L.50,000 fine required for a speeding ticket as I am at having to go through the ordeal required to make that payment and get my driver's license back. In the 'civilized' world, a traffic ticket can be paid in under a minute, usually at a drive-thru or online. Contact is only required with at most one government employee (the person sitting behind the window at the drive-thru), and the job is done. But in those countries, they have demerit points that get applied to your driving record that can affect your driving privileges and even your insurance premiums. Our equivalent to this second deterrent (the first being the actual fine) is the aforementioned ordeal.

One funny thing I've noticed: To keep their stacks of issued tickets and confiscated driver's licenses organized, the darak staple their copy of each offender's ticket to that offender's license. Once the offender gets his license back, it has a staple in it, which he/she has to remove. This is an ingenious replacement to the demerit system. All one has to do is count the staple holes in a driver's license to guage that driver's record.

I, being in many ways a typical Lebanese, never wear a seat belt. On Saturday, I got a ticket. So now I grudgingly strap in every time I'm in the car. There are far too many serious traffic accidents in the country, so although I am annoyed at having to wear my seat belt, I also feel that enforcing these laws are necessary, especially since most drivers here wouldn't pass a standard driving test in another country. One of these days my head will explode from an excess of cognitive dissonance.

Of course the current ticketing craze will pass, as does every other fad in the country, social or administrative. We are, after all, in Lebanon.