On the way into the Traffic Department, there are a few grotty old offices where it's possible to employ an Arabic speaker to help you out, but for a price. We passed by the first office, outside of which stood a guy who was clearly trying to get our business. Who knows what expletives came out of his mouth when Erik refused politely and said he was going to his old friend in the second office. We haven't and don't necessarily intend to learn any Arabic swear words.
We found Erik's "old friend" in his white robe and skullcap (we think it might be North African) sitting outside smoking a cigarette. He took us into the office which housees a few desks and Arabic typewriters. He asked for our i.d. cards and my driver's license. Now, I have three driver's licenses - Oregon, Germany and international. I've heard that they recently changed the rules and that Americans have to take a test, so I gave him my German (E.U.) license. The first thing he did was hand Erik a letter to sign. We think it must have said something like this:
To whom it may concern:
I do solemnly swear that I am responsible for this woman, my wife number one. I promise to provide her with a Toyota Land Cruiser or similar and pay all traffic fines or blood money she may incur as said driver of said vehicle. In the event that she is ever out of my favor, I reserve the right to have this license revoked at anytime.
Sincerely,
_____________________
With that letter and a form filled out in Arabic by E's old friend, he led us to the eye-testing room. My eye test consisted of reading 4 letters, à
Then our old friend (by now he is OUR old friend) took us across the way to a hall not unlike any of your typical Departments of Motor Vehicles in the U.S. Mercifully, there was almost nobody there. My husband paid 250 QR and two minutes later I had my license. I said thank you to the woman behind the desk and I think, but I can't be sure, she actually smiled at me. I couldn't quite tell, because all I could see were two eyes. We handed our old friend a 100 QR bill and that was that.
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So, all that was pretty easy. Now comes the frustrating story of the day. First a little background...
I haven't really mentioned much about driving in Qatar. Those of you who are reading this and know anything about it are probably shocked it hasn't come up yet. Don't worry. It will. I'm just trying to come up with a way to describe it that won't scare our dear relatives too much.
In an effort to cut down on traffic accidents, Qatar is on a campaign to propagate better driving habits. One of their ways of doing it is by having a quite high fine system. Running a red light, for instance, will cost you 6000 QR ($1650/Euros1120). There are cameras at most intersections and people tend to really hit the breaks if the green light starts blinking. There is also zero tolerance for speeding, which, it turns out also includes zero tolerance for speedometers that are not quite accurate. If you want to leave the country and you haven't paid your traffic fines, think again. They will stop you at border control and not let you leave until you pay. A point system, along the lines of Flensburg (Germans will know about this), but surely much more convoluted, is also part of the system. After a certain number of points, you probably get publicly whipped or something. Just joking.
So, back to our story. Erik got flashed a few months ago in our rental car (for going maybe 5km/h above the limit), so considering we are leaving for Sweden in less than 10 days at 2am and we happened to be at the traffic office today, he thought it might be convenient to pay it. It turns out that they didn't allow him to do so. There is another fine on the car from a previous renter and with that fine comes 3 points. They told us to pay the rental company and get a receipt which we can show at the airport should there be a problem.
So, deciding that doing such a thing at the last minute was not a good idea - who knows what might go wrong? - we stopped at the rental company on the way home. It turns out that they were certainly willing to take our money, but with an extra charge of 10% for paperwork. Well, we wouldn't have had to pay them if they hadn't dealt with the previous fine on the car in the first place (from AUGUST!!), so there was no way we were going to pay the 10%. All the reasoning in the world didn't get them to understand that we already tried to pay the fine elsewhere and it isn't our fault that we had to come to them to pay it, so why should we pay extra???
Two questions here: 1) If the traffic office was clear about the fact that the outstanding fine on the car wasn't ours, why is it not possible to pay what IS ours? 2) Why hasn't the rental company taken care of the outstanding fine?
The answers: 1) Who knows? 2) Who knows?
In the end, Erik threatened that heads would roll if we don't hear from them by the end of the next working day when their manager is supposedly coming back. We honestly don't care if they are just "workers". They should also use their brains.
We're going bowling with friends now. Maybe we can pretend we are rolling heads.
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