It’s Better to Pay Your Penalty at the Station House When You Get the Ticket

(it is actually an essay which i wrote for my writing class, but i think it contains wise advice for some of my friends)

In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, most people ride motorcycle to move from place to place. Therefore, traffic regulations are mostly pointed to the motorcycle riders. These regulations control the helmet using, motorcycle lights, maximum speed, traffic signs, driving license, vehicle registration, and so on.
It is the traffic police’s duty to make the motorcycle riders to keep obeying these rules. Cops stay in their posts in T junctions and intersections. They do regular patrol, watch the road, and arrest people who break the rules. Besides, traffic interceptions are held from time to time to discipline people who don’t complete their driving license and vehicle registration.
Everyday, tens to hundreds riders got the ticket from the patrols and interceptions. The accused would be subjected to penalty of fines which can be paid at the station house. But if you are not able to pay the fines at the station house (because you don’t bring enough money or you have sharp quarrel with the officer), you may attend the court. But for some reasons, it would be so much better to pay your fines at the station house at the time rather than at the court. There will be many inconveniences if you pay your fines at the court.
When you decide to pay your fines at the court, the cop would give you the ticket containing your accusation and the date when the court would be held. Usually, the date is two weeks after the arrest, at 8 am. It means you have to rearrange your schedule and provide time to attend the court that day. It will mess up your schedule. Your working time would be disturbed, you will loose your morning classes, and you will have to break appointments at the day. The affairs at the court would occupy most of your time in the morning to midday, and your other business has to be excluded.
In the morning of your hearing, you will come to the court along with other citizens who also got the ticket. Usually, though the ticket says that your trial is at 8 am, the courtroom would be open at 9. Lateness is one of the infamous habits of civil bureaucrats.
You will enter the small courtroom along with hundreds of other accused people. You and the other defendants would sit and jostle in the wooden bench of the courtroom. The others who don’t get the seat at the bench would stand in crowds along the wall or even outside because the courtroom is so small.
Then, five or six attendants of the court with serious expressions and arrogant faces of important people would enter the room and bring bundle of files containing your violation details. Afterwards, the attendant who has the most important and arrogant look will announce that the defendants should submit the tickets to the table. You and other defendants will race to the table and submit your ticket. You then will realize that it doesn’t matter whether you come at 7 or at 9. The attendants would random the ticket and there is no fix list of whoever come first or whoever come last. Efficiency is not regarded in a court like this.
The attendants would sort your files and tickets. They scan the tickets, and sometimes they kick two or three people out because they find the tickets are for the other week courts. Then, if they found a ticket without file, the attendants would realize that they have done something wrong. They will call the accused that got the troubled ticket and say without expression, “Please find the police officer who issued this ticket. It seems that he or she hasn’t sent your files to the court. We can not process your case without it.” And then the accused would go with swallowed swearing words.
Then, the judge, with real court toga, will come and sit in the tall chair behind the green table. The judge will murmur some words and tap the hammer, indicating that the trial is started. Then the-attendant-whose-face-i

s-the-most-arrogant-of-all calls the accused one by one with his bold and manful voice. The accused will come and sit in the chair of prisoner. If the accused is represented, the judge will have the representative to wait until the hearing for all of the defendants is finished before listening to him or her.
Ten defendants will be heard at the same time and usually they are grouped based on their type of infractions. The judge will look at their eyes and they will utter their infractions one by one. They just simply say “Driving license.” “Traffic sign.” or “Helmet.”, and the judge will understand. Afterwards, the judge will say, “So all of your infractions are the same, right? One subsection is broken, thus the fine is Rp 15,000 plus Rp 1000 for the legal fee. Please pay your fines at the next room.” The defendants get up from their seats and move to the room beside the courtroom to join the queue of people paying their fines.
See, having affairs with this department is full of inefficient bureaucracy. Many hours are wasted, your energy is exhausted, and if the department does some wrongs, you will have double inconveniences; for example see how they treat the person whose file is not complete.
It would be so much better to pay your fines at the station house when you got the ticket. Unlike finishing your case at the court, paying the fines before the cops face would avoid you from being tangled in sickening and protracted affairs.
In the station house, after arresting you the cop would state your mistake and explain the subsection you broke. Afterwards, they would ask question about your dad’s job. It maybe sounds weird, but Jogja traffic police officers do that. They will ask question about your father’s job, and if they find that your father is a police officer too, usually they will release you along with lecturing words, plus hellos to your family.
But if your dad is unfortunately a merely civilian, they will accuse you with the Rp 30,000 fines for each subsection you break, no matter which subsection you break (Indonesian traffic police are infamous for their habit on doing extortion). For example if you can not show your driving license when you are arrested for not wearing helmet, you will have to pay Rp 60,000 because you break two subsections. You pay your fines and the cop will release you without further affairs and confusing bureaucracy.
Some of the people who are sent to the court by traffic police refuse to pay the penalty at the station house. Some of them don’t bring enough money, and some others are too idealist to trust their money to the cops. However, actually you still can avoid inconvenient court if you are tangled in those circumstances.
If you don’t bring enough money to pay the fines, you can politely ask the officer to permit you to go to the nearest ATM machine. You can also call one of your friend or family to come after you and bring the money. The important thing is to pay your fines at the time so you don’t have to have further inconvenience at the court and sit as a defendant.
Some of idealist citizens who got a ticket would have long quarrel with police officers, stating that cops and other civil servants are useless. Sometimes the quarrel would be so sharp that it needs three muscular police officers to handle one stubborn rider. When the situation goes like that, the officers would instantly issue the ticket and send the rider to the court, not willing to be condescended to accept the money for the fines. However, it is better to be polite to the police officers, no matter how you are sicken with them. Therefore it is better to be polite, to swallow your pride and cursing words, pay your fines and get out of there quickly.
Paying your fines at the station house at the time is so much better and a lot easier than to be in long protracted affairs in the court that can mess up your schedule and your day. You would not have to bear the risk of late file submission errors, court delays, and disregarded efficiency.