First mistake: I said: Law Samahat (please if you do not mind me asking)! It seems that being rude and arrogant work better in such situations.

He literally told me that only “certain” cars and people go in. Mind you my sister was driving a Mercedes. Her kids were enrolled in a summer camp in the club.

Second Mistake: The kids told the guard that they were from Egypt. It seems that some Arabs adore Nasser, Om Kalthoum, and Tamer Hosni but not the Egyptian people.

My sister simply waited for the kids to get in the car while blocking the entry to the club and no one was behind us or complaining but sister had to have her moment of defiance!

The guard grabs a pen and paper and starts writing the license number down.

Please imagine the tough choice I was in at that moment. I had two different personalities and characters. One was American and the other was Arab. There was an inner struggle between the two and the Arab one won.

I simply walked out of the car and went to him with an eternity of confidence and self pompous and said: Do you have any idea who I am? I was gazing in his eyes and he was gazing into mine.

My gaze was bloody serious.

I saw a glimmer of doubt in his eyes. I had to take charge and said: It seems that you have not watched TV lately! Ok, give me your name.

As much as my sister, her kids, and I were thrilled that the guard relented and came to apologize without really knowing if I was some body or not, as much as I hated what I had to do!

We are all at fault!

Perhaps he was closer to another accident scene, but then got pulled across to yours, leaving others unfairly stranded for even longer — with no one to call.

This wasta-usage was small fry compared to, say, getting put into a job you’re totally unqualified for.

But isn’t it just part of the same cultural thought process, the same basic instinct that when life isn’t quite going our way:- we place a phone call.

P.S: glad to hear everyone came out of the accident unscathed. Even with Jordanian car taxes, a car is still worth less than a life. ; )

Second, I totally agree with you on this matter and to tell you the truth, most of our traffic laws need to be changed or modified because they just don’t make much sense. Applying the laws should be done in a more professional way and there should be no tolerance whatsoever, but our main problem is that they keep giving exceptions where they are not necessary and this creates a mess …

I had an accident last month and I was car less for one week just because the other driver thought he was smarter, faster and smoother than me and that he will never hit me, which he did and in a very stupid way … and when I stepped out of the car and waited for the police to come … all men in the street were like: get in the car and wait there because obviously it was annoying them that I am a girl in a street who had a car accident and to them .. I shouldn’t have been there in the first place .. everyone acted as if they wanted to hide me … boy! I really wanted to scream

Salamtak Nas

But seriously, such governments hire useless people like most of the police in the Police Station just to give them a salary and a job! Useless bureaucracy to keep citizens dumb bureaucrats! God help you all. Imagine what will happen to all those sorry police officers when they can not smoke!

to address a few random bits from the comments above:

kinzi…yes, i just got the truck out from a previous accident that took place several weeks ago. it was hit while parked innocently on the street. cest la vie.

yazan…more often than not…frustrations call for a little profanity.

my_name…thanks for the tip!

to those suggesting that i should’ve filed a complaint. the problem here is that i will be punishing myself more than punishing this person. it will mean more days where i have to put everything on hold to go to court. it will mean paying a lawyer so my rights are fully protected. and i still have a broken truck that’ll be in the shop while all this is happening and i have to go around in taxis and buses.

that’s the irony of such a situation, the law allows you to wield it as a learning tool, but the lesson doesn’t come without a cost to the instructor.

thank you all for reading and sharing your own stories!

much appreciated

OH MY GOD!

YOU DRIVE A TRUCK!!!

Walla salamtak ya zalameh, hopefully it will be your last accident. Believe me, it’s much better getting into this hassle and living the Jordanian bereaucracy at its best than having one little broken finger.

I once had an accident and “accidentally” sued the other driver instead of doing a Kroka. I learned many lessonson on what to do right after an accident. Fortunately I had another accident 4 days later in the same car on the same side and was able to fix the car only once and avoid going to court.

7amdella 3al salameh…

I am glad you are talking about this! It has an accident something like this a few years ago. The guy was unconscious in his truck when it lost track and hit me on the other side of the lane! I dont remember they asked me if i want to press charges or not, but I remember waiting for the policeman for a couple of hours till he arrive to the police station which was just few meters away from the accident. I think they have this policy of covering seceral accidents in one tour before they come back to the station! Something should be done about this!

and

” think you did a mistake by not filling a complaint. maybe you would have made a person learn a lesson if you did. Some more waste of your time, maybe would have saved a life . I would never let those careless people get out of it for 100JDs. I think It was your responsibility to waste more time on them, even if we have such time-wasting-system.
Anyway, Hamdella 3al salame”

i totally agree, we hired a contractor to build something for us, the 60 days job has taken over a year now. for real. over a year. we dont need the little building he is making, thats why we didnt care, and we have been following his case and promise after promise, lie after lie, he made it take over a year regardless of the detailed writen contract.

I told my dad that he HAS TO submit these false checks the contractor put as a guarantee (which turned out to be fake, even) to court and file a complaint against him and make him pay for the delay acording to the contract etc, beucase if we dont teach him the lesson he will keep doing this to other people, in my opinion its a case of “ima6at al2atha 3an a66areeq 9adaqa”. and a guy like the contractor, or the teenager that hit your truck, is an 2atha that should be removed.

al7amdu lillah 3ala salamtak, once more

** I think salamtak requires mansaf though… dont you guys agree? **

It’s peoples attitudes, you only have to look at the Police officers at the station who were, as you say were doing nothing but smoking, drinking coffee and chatting.

How effective would government solutions be with that kind of lazy attitude? You only have at no smoking in public buildings to see how people attitudes are to certain things.

One officer for three districts? On a Thursday night? Wait until 2am? Why don’t they just tell you to come back in the morning? Do they WANT to guarantee bad attitudes after a wrecked evening and sleepless night?

I am ready to go demonstrate about unenforced traffic laws and the inefficient system of traffic management such as this. There is so much that can’t be changed here, this could easily be changed and give some people hope for bigger stuff.

Didn’t you just get the truck out of the shop?