I read today that the Metro Police in Jo'burg are going to be on a blitz again, in order to reduce the deficit of outstanding fines. Fines, being defined as traffic violations consisting of people talking on cell phones while driving, skipped red robots and our long time favourite, speeding. Using the element of surprise, the Metro will set up random road blocks in addition to pulling over suspicious looking drivers and present them with an electronic version of the original arrest warrant. What an "electronic version" means, I have no idea. I can't imagine the Metro being able to operate a jigsaw puzzle, let alone a laptop computer.

Apparently, we as motorists owe the government almost R280m. I can understand why the boys in blue and khaki are upset, that's a fair amount of money that they didn't manage to get in cash at the scene.

It always amazes me how many people I know who have bribed an officer of the law, but that is a different story altogether and I don't feel like even thinking about politics and how corrupt this country has become.

I do, however, have a couple of suggestions as to what they should do with the money, if they manage to actually get some of it paid.

The first thing I would nominate is an obligatory exercise program for all officers. This would include the basics, like running and push-ups, and the occasional sit up when they get really advanced. There is a lot of weight on those asses, and frankly it is costing Joe Public more in annual tyre costs than fines deficits. This is the easy part, the superintendent could start off every mornings briefing with a jog around the block, dangling doughnuts and hot dogs from the back of one of their luxury pick-ups.

As they say, healthy body and healthy mind. The next step would be a little bit of schooling. Just some basic reading and writing skills to start off with. My goal here would be to just get them to be able to spell common surnames and possibly pronounce the intersection where the bush they are hiding behind is situated. A little bit of cross-cultural pronunciation and spelling will be part of phase 2.

Now that we have the basics down, I think we could seriously work on some driving skills. The "do what I say, not what I do" attitude will be replaced with a "I'll stay in my lane if you stay in yours".

And the final module will be a reality check and test. This will involve removing the identity crisis that every TRAFFIC officer thinks that they are John Rambo on a mission to stop the invading forces from stealing our president, when in actual fact they are just here to make sure that everyone gets to work and back safely everyday.

The test will be split into a theory section, comprising of strictly multiple choice questions, while the practical section will involve traffic violations simulated by the use of go-karts and dummies. Just so that we don't offend anyone else.

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