About a month ago, at 10.30pm, I was returning home from a very long day at work, and as I was heading towards Libertador Av., I saw two consecutive flashes of light that were unmistakable: I was speeding (70km/h instead of the 60km/h limit). Since then, no news. Then all of a sudden, I receive a citation to go to the Traffic Controller and explaing what had happened (and if my explanation was satisfactory, I would be pardoned and receive no fine). If I did not go, I would automatically receive a fine (aprox. U$S 50).
So, I decided to go at noon today (they had cited me at that time) and, as I approached the municipal building, I prayed that all those horrible stories people had told me about going there were actually mistaken. They weren't. In fact, they fell short.
The place is absolute chaos. Dirty. Homeless people living outside, lying on the ground wrapped in dirty blankets. Has to be fiction, I thought. But it wasn't. Once inside, things got worse: a long queue of people waiting in the best Disneyland style - some sitting, some exhausted from the hours they had already spent there. So, I thought there were surely many lines, there had to be one for each different task (citation, paying a fine, general questions, etc.). No, one line for all. Once I figured out where it ended (it actually went outside the building onto the sidewalk), I asked approximately how long it would take to get to talk to someone who might pardon me. They said that in an hour they would hand out the numbers for the afternoon, and after that the real wait would start. In five hours I would be out, they said. All of this, of course, was being done during lunchtime. Now and only now I understood why the people who can prefer just paying for the fines instead of going through this humiliation. What happens then, to those who can't pay? I guess, like me, they must wait in line. To be continued this Friday, when I will go at 7am to do the number queue and then try to get out before 10am ...
