Remember the days when lazy-ass traffic cops used to hide behind bushes, manning those old-style speed detecting devices with wires leading from it and spread out across the road, at some point ahead of them. When a speeding vehicle drove over the wires across the road, it registered your speed on the trapping device, which if exceeded the limit, would trigger the cop to jump out from behind the bush to flag you down and issue a speeding ticket. Can you remember how many fat fecks; I mean traffic cops, there were back in those days?
Well these days, the traffic cops are still lazy-ass swines who hide behind bushes and billboards or under trees; only, now you will notice that most of them are distinctly larger in girth than I remember from the old days. At this point, it must be pointed out that the bushes, billboards or tress must provide shade which is absolutely necessary to protect traffic-cop-blubber from wilting in the hot South African sun.
In the new South Africa, the devices being used to detect speeding have become more sophisticated; they now record your transgression on film. Which means that the traffic cops need just sit next to the device and keep it company, while it does all the work. No need to jump up from their comfortable position in the shade, and run 10 meters to flag down speeding motorists all day, as the captured film has just got to be downloaded at the end of a successful day trapping (extorting from?)motorists, and a speeding ticket issued to the offender (unlucky bastard) through the post. There are even fixed cameras mounted at strategic revenue generating positions that don’t need to be manned at all, which feeds the pictures electronically to control points. The net effect is that traffic cops don’t get no exercise anymore, and voila! A happy, fat traffic police service.
They now have more time to do important things such as meet in small groups near intersections with broken-down traffic lights to discuss the latest ass-fattening technology, or catch up on who is meeting the revenue generation targets for local councils, blissfully oblivious to the chaos ensuing at the intersection in question. Or maybe troll the local shopping mall parking lot, or even catch up on some shopping; why not?
The most noticeable thing about the traffic police is that they make very little effort to warn offenders, and educate them against bad driving behaviour, by just issuing a warning ticket. They are also reluctant to actually organise and man notorious traffic hot-spots on a daily basis. I’ll concede that some hot-spots are manned, but not in the daily organized manner required by the driving public. The lame excuses of personnel and vehicle shortages don’t wash, when you see them posted behind shady bushes, in places which are more amenable to revenue generation, rather than for being any danger to motorists. Traffic policing has become a rather convenient excuse to generate revenue, and speeding the alter of expediency.
The following photo shows some of the ways being devised to disguise the speed trapping devices. It smacks of laziness, and reinforces the generally accepted rationale of revenue generation by deceit. If you see or suspect one these bins being used nefariously, report it to the local refuse removal company (or vagrant) for collection. Lets see the cops chase after their speeding devices for a change.
Lenny Says 
