Stopped by Police

Two days ago as we were speeding along the highway (literally) towards Bangkok from Lampang, I was day dreaming a little bit when I saw a man waving his arms frantically ahead. It took me a moment to register this and then I realised that it was a policeman. There was a lump in my throat. I was driving on the right overtaking lane at the time and most likely speeding above the 120kph limit.

I stopped where the two police officers were waiting for me. The officer asked me in Thai for my driver’s licence. I looked at him blankly as if I couldn’t understand him. Then after a few seconds, he said in English “licence”. I looked in my wallet for the copy of my licence which I had prepared for just this kind of occasion (if you give your real licence then you are forced to go to the police station to get your licence back). However, I couldn’t find it and had to give him my real licence. He told me in Thai that I was in the right lane and that I was going too fast. I have him another blank look and raised my eye brow. He stopped for a moment and finally said in English “high speed”. I replied, “I thought the speed limit was 120” in English. He talked into his walky-talky and after hearing a reply said to me “126” in Thai. I looked confused. Then he wrote down the number 126 on his note paid. Then he said “200 baht”. If I gave him 200 baht I knew that it would most likely just go into his pocket. The normal process is to write a ticket and that I have to go to the police station to pay the fine. I didn’t want to go to the police station and add additional time to 9 hours journey. But I didn’t want to pay the quasi bribe either. He asked me “back in Lampang when?”. I replied “I’m going to Australia”. The officer looked back at the back of our car full to the brim with luggage and knew I wasn’t lying. He might have been thinking of writing me a real ticket but if I wasn’t going back to Lampang I couldn’t pay the fine at the police station. He thought for a moment and I kept on waiting. Finally, he gave up and waved me on telling me “slow, slow”. As we were driving off I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face. This about the third time I’ve been stopped police and pretended that I can’t speak Thai. I don’t like doing it and I feel a bit guilty about it but I don’t like paying bribes either. I’ve heard so many stories of missionaries being fined for speeding when they definitely weren’t (e.g. saying that they were going at 140 km when the car is physically incapably of going at that speed).

I know many other missionaries who try talking Thai with the police when they are stopped buvt in most cases it doesn’t work and they end up either with a ticket or paying the fine directly to policeman to avoid the hassle of going to the police station. I'd say in this rare case, having Thai is not an advantage.