Fined

So I received my first traffic fine in two years of driving this month. I didn't jump a red light, or halt at a stop sign, nor did I exceed the speed limit, or forget my license,  and there was no fault in my car when examined (thank God). I got a five hundred rand fine for driving without an emergency triangle in my car. Five hundred rand for a shape!

I had so many thoughts parading through my mind, but I kept them to myself and concluded I'd head to court with dad after this. You see, thing is, I always get picked on by these traffic people. I don't know if it's the car, or just me; I'm starting to think it's both. The car because  Bruno celebrated his 20th birthday this year (a living testimony that what doesn't break you makes you stronger, haha). I'll be following BMW's and Audi's with Merc's and Chev's behind me and miraculously get picked out of the lot. Me because even though I'm growing older soon, my appearance (especially height) doesn't seem to want to catch up. Oh ja, another thing that contributes to my pull-overs is that nobody knows me. Believe it or not, that's how it works in our lil' town. My dad never gets pulled over, I'm sure he's even forgotten what is asked of you when you're pulled over. When you know the cops you just hoot and drive on, when you're like me, you get pulled over each time. I'm indoors so much that people sometimes ask me if I'm visiting, I always say I'm from Gauteng when I feel naughty.

Anyway, each time I'm stopped, it's the usual drill: license, license disk, hoot, lights, indicators, brakes, reverse, tyres, then I get my license back, if the officer is male, this is when he makes his attempts to hit on me (always a fail), then off I go. I had my hand on the ignition once we were done with the brakes, I thought I was through, then came the instruction: Let me see your emergency triangle. I nearly exclaimed  "you're joking right?"
Cars didn't come with emergency triangles attached to the boot when Bruno was manufactured and funny enough I'd never seen the need to buy one. As you know, my car has had multiple break downs, the most famous being on a highway, and never had I thought of an emergency triangle even then.

This stupid scenario that had me all worked up and my blood pressure playing summersaults made me realize how it's small silly things that make us suffer big consequences because well, those things are small and 'insignificant' in our eyes. I thought of the importance of this silly little shape and realized that it stood to protect me and other motorists from adding salt to the wound by having an accident on top of a break-down (but I still think five hundred rand is too steep for something like a triangle). There are small, seemingly insignificant things that we need to have stored up somewhere in our storage compartment in this journey called life. Not possessing such can lead to unnecessary casualties (and expenses).

So after we went to the court house to make a request for the fine to be reduced, we went to the local spares to purchase a little red triangle for sixty-two rand. And to think I brought this upon myself. Now I'm going to dig up my K53 and check what else I need to possess (I've seen  mini fire-extinguishers in some cars...oh bugger).