A red light means stop. Full stop

UAE’S STRICT APPROACH

- YOGIN DEVAN

“AVOCADO on seeded bread, a poached egg and a mango juice please,” my guest rattled off to the waiter, eyes glued to his phone.

I was still scanning the breakfast menu at the restaurant high up on Durban’s Berea, but it was near impossible to ignore the worried look that suddenly bathed my visitor's face.

Durban held him for a week’s work, and our hurried reunion was confined to just 45 minutes. Still, the shadow of unease was unmistakable, and I gently asked if something was amiss.

“I got a traffic fine for shooting a red light,” he sighed, laying the phone aside, finally conceding that our conversation mattered more.

“A traffic fine? Is that all? I was bracing myself for something far more grave,” I said.

And that’s how the subject for this week’s column was born.

My friend had driven through a red traffic light in Dubai and had received the traffic fine on his phone. In Dubai, running a red light carries a fine of 1 000 dirhams. This is equivalent to R5 000.

Given the current exchange rate, R5 000 in Dubai is about equal to the R1 000 that a red-light violation will set you back by in South Africa, I thought. So what's the big deal? Why doesn’t my friend just forget about the fine and start digging into his food?

I was wrong. In addition to the fine, the vehicle is impounded for a mandatory 30 days, denying you of your means of transport. And here comes the crunch. Violators must pay a staggering 50 000 dirhams which is R250 000 (yes, two hundred and fifty thousand rands) to get the vehicle back.