7 ms·

Having lived in Romania and Vietnam, you learn to appreciate the efficiency of just paying the bribe and getting on with your life. For example, if I get caught

by aianus 11y ago

Having lived in Romania and Vietnam, you learn to appreciate the efficiency of just paying the bribe and getting on with your life. For example, if I get caught speeding I can bribe a cop for like $20 in Eastern Europe or Asia versus losing $1000s in Canada between fines and insurance premium increases. I personally find it a lot less stressful than living in Canada where every time I see a cop I get a little adrenaline rush of fear. Anyways, most of the other things on your list exist in Canada too, we just don't call it bribery, we call it "private clinics", "private school", "private motorcycle training academy where your instructor, who's the same person you're paying and reviewing, is the one who gives you your license".

nl 11y ago
Have you considered not speeding? It also helps avoid the fines.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  There are traffic scenarios where it's too dangerous to stick with the legal speed limits.
  - CaptainZapp 11y ago
    I was about to downvote you, since I think this statemment is, well, moronic. Instead I kindly ask you to elaborate on just one situation, where exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. Edited to add : To be clear: Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous.
    - lmartel 11y ago
      If the posted speed limit is 55 and everyone but you is going 80, then exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. There's your situation. [Of course, you'd never get a ticket in this situation, and I think there are even legal provisions regarding respecting the "flow of traffic" in some US states.]
      - Angostura 11y ago
        Just to be clear, don't try this in the UK. If everyone is going at 80, everyone will get a ticket, thanks to automated speed cameras.
        saint_fiasco 11y ago
        Hypothetically, it it were true that going at 80 is safer because everyone else is going at 80, wouldn't you have to choose between a risk of paying a fine versus a risk of losing your life? That sounds messed up.
      - Amezarak 11y ago
        > [Of course, you'd never get a ticket in this situation, and I think there are even legal provisions regarding respecting the "flow of traffic" in some US states.] This is exactly how I got my first ticket. I was moving with the flow of traffic, which was going about 15mph over the 55mph speed limit on a busy four lane divided highway. Highway Patrol flew up out of nowhere, angrily berated me for five minutes, and gave me a speeding ticket. Now I just go the speed limit. People cuss me out and flip me off, but that's preferable to paying several hundred dollars. (And for me, it turns out not to really be worth it anyway. Most places I go speeding saves me < 5 minutes, and I get much better gas mileage, up to 48mpg, accelerating slowly and not driving faster than 65mph.) Can you, by the way, cite any state laws explicitly saying it is OK to exceed the posted speed limit if doing so is required to move with the flow of traffic? I have heard this claim a lot but I have never been able to find real proof of it. There are sometimes "flow of traffic" laws applicable if you're driving too far below the posted speed limit, which is assumed (wrongly) to be the maximum "normal and reasonable" speed of normal traffic, and there are laws against driving slowly in the left lanes, and sometimes laws that allow you to speed while passing on a two-lane road, but I have never seen one that was applicable to someone driving at or above the speed limit and would have allowed them to legally speed.
    - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      Safety in traffic depends, among other things, on the relative speed between you and the cars around you. When this relative speed gets out of a certain range, you and/or those around you are forced to make dangerous maneuvers increasing the risk of collision. With this in mind, think about scenarios where the average speed is above the legal limit: highways, rural roads with no known speed cams, etc. Now imagine heavy traffic and only one participant slowing down to the legal limit. Here's one US citizen's experience driving on highways in Italy, where I live, describing what safe driving looks like here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-drive-above-the-speed-limit/answer/Alan-Chao https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-drive-above-the-speed-li...
      - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
        Rural roads you have to be careful speeding because people walk on them and tractors drive on them, and sometimes there are horses. If you're driving the limit and there's a bunch of people behind you, either (a) they can deal with it or (b) you can pull over and let them pass.
        stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        Rural road in northern Italy: https://www.google.it/maps/@45.4014223,8.955495,3a,75y,72.04h,93.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s70W0ZwnQ9tVmDYg0cRs9tw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en https://www.google.it/maps/@45.4014223,8.955495,3a,75y,72.04...
    - aianus 11y ago
      > Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous. No matter how fast a truck is driving, I don't want to be anywhere near it while driving my motorcycle. Those tires randomly explode (I've seen it happen multiple times) and when a piece hits you, you're dead. I pass them ASAP, no matter how fast I have to go to do it.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      Here's a pointer to a couple of engineering studies I found interesting, personally: https://www.motorists.org/blog/how-should-speed-limits-be-set/ https://www.motorists.org/blog/how-should-speed-limits-be-se...
  - 1ris 11y ago
    This does not deserve to be downvoted. Driving too slow is as dangerous as driving to fast, or more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve
    - JimmyM 11y ago
      I think it has likely been downvoted by people from countries that do not speed. I have only ever seen Americans and Canadians talking about the necessity to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic (and they have a higher rate of fatal RTAs per 100,000 than most Western European countries – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... – Canada is close to Italy, a country that is well known in Western Europe for terrifying traffic, while America is closer to South American countries) While driving too slow is as dangerous as driving too fast, it's not as dangerous as the Solomon curve suggests, according to the article you linked: > Reporting on these results in 1971, academics West and Dunn confirmed the findings of Solomon and Cirillo,[11] but found that crashes involving turning vehicles accounted for 44 percent of all crashes observed in the study and that excluding these crashes from the analysis greatly attenuated the factors that created the U-shape of the Solomon curve. The topic of this conversation also seems to oddly mirror the course of the story from the original article. Minor acts of breaking a just law, justified on an individual basis, lead to a society in which regularly breaking that law is accepted – and indeed enforced – by the state. That is probably why people are downvoting your parent comment. For the record I don't have the ability or the desire to have the ability to downvote.
      - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        > Italy, a country that is well known in Western Europe for terrifying traffic Is it? The death toll is average to low compared to the rest of Europe: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/gis/mapcare_fatal_2014.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/gis/mapcare_fa... And it's low compared to the rest of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  I was going to say that too, but in corrupt countries, you'll get fined for speeding whether you were speeding or not - and expected to bribe the 'officer' regardless. It's not paying a policeman something then and there that's the problem - for you it'd become the fine for speeding - but it's having to pay without having done anything wrong. It's the power abuse associated with it that's wrong.
  - roddux 11y ago
    This happened to me in Vietnam. A police officer pulled over me and a friend as we rode past, then came up with a story about us having 'incorrect papers'. Later found out from the owner of the hostel that the same thing had happened to most of his guests for the entire season!
    - aianus 11y ago
      While I can't say for sure, you probably did have incorrect papers. I drove the whole time there without proper registration or a valid license because it was basically impossible to obtain them as a foreigner. I tried my best and it just wasn't happening and the advice I got was to act dumb and pay off anyone who tried to stop me.
    - megablast 11y ago
      To ride in Vietnam you do need a Vietnamese drivers license, so he was not wrong.
  - nl 11y ago
    True. But fortunately from that point of view the OP now appears to be in Canada.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  You sound white.
anovikov 11y ago
Other side of the life is chaos, crime, pollution and insecurity, and not unimportant for the crowd here, low company valuations vs their profits in those countries. Exactly because laws don't work. No startups in the proper sense can exist in such conditions, because contracts can't enforced, intellectual property rights can't be protected, and venture capital is impossible because money can be only loaned for the physical collaterial - everything else like equity is just paper. Also East Europe is a big place, and it is all different. What works in Russia or Ukraine might work only in a limited way in Hungary and the Baltics, and don't work at all in Slovakia. In Europe, it strongly depends on the fraction of Orthodox population. There is nothing like that in Czech Republic, for example. Interestingly wealth doesn't change that. Cyprus is rich, and Greece used to be rich until recently, and they are ridden with corruption from top to bottom.
- sithadmin 11y ago
  >In Europe, it strongly depends on the fraction of Orthodox population. Wait, what? Mind unpacking that idea a bit?
  - anovikov 11y ago
    Just an observation. Orthodox people are prone to corruption because they see every organized structures except church as 'foreign'. For example, theft on the workplace (being it a government or private employer) is culturally OK for them, they don't even try to hide it from the people they know. Any collaboration with the government (even reporting crime not being its direct victim or family member) is a no-no. A cop can't be a friend, they mostly make friends between themselves. etc. etc.
jacquesm 11y ago
So, do you speed in Canada?
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Everyone seems to go 10-20kmh over depending on the road, at least in southern Ontario. On the 407 it's closer to 30 over and if I stayed at 100 it'd be rather uncomfortable (and after being away for a while, I woulda sworn it was 120). At 50 they can roadside impound and suspend license. The only point the GP has is that corruption is the oil of bureaucracy. In Guatemala, for instance, they started this whole anti-corruption drive a bit ago. Didn't really help; the president and vice president are now in jail for their part in a massive theft of taxes. But for the regular people? Importing a container? Good luck. Before, you could pay the clerks to work overtime and move you to the top of the pile after 5pm. Now they've got all these annoying receipt systems so you have no way of doing this unless you're a serious player and turn a ton of people. Who wins here?
frozenport 11y ago
Most Russians are terrified of the police, because they know that they can ask for a `bribe` even if you haven't done anything wrong. The problem with corrupt isn't that the rules benefit one party or another, rather that they are unpredictable.
- aianus 11y ago
  In Canada everybody speeds all the time. In fact, it would be unsafe not to speed on the 401 as you'd be driving considerably slower than everyone else. So the enforcement randomness is the same, it's just the penalties are stiffer and longer-lasting.
  - praxulus 11y ago
    People don't get speeding tickets for going with the flow of traffic. And no, it really isn't unsafe to go at the speed limit. Driving at 20mph on a highway can cause problems, but going 10-15mph slower than traffic in the rightmost lane is not going to cause any accidents.
    - tedks 11y ago
      Unless you're black, or maybe also a muslim, or a sikh wearing a turban, or a native american. Unless the cop on that stretch has a quota to fill. Unless you're unlucky. Power is just as capricious, wherever you are in the world. People that select to be in positions of power are rarely the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. I see where the comment parent is coming from.
      - ptaipale 11y ago
        Or unless you are driving a fancier car than others, or at wrong time of day, or parked next to the wrong guy. Unless you're unlucky. However: > People that select to be in positions of power are rarely the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. I think this is an exaggeration. People that select to be in positions of power are not always the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. The difference in degree of corruption in a country is roughly the same thing as the trustability of people in positions of power.
MrPatan 11y ago
I congratulate you on your relevant choice of username.
ljf 11y ago
Efficient for you as you can easily (I presume) pay the bribes... but for 99% of people what impact does this have on their life, when they can also end up being forced to pay when they AREN'T breaking the law.
rdtsc 11y ago
> I personally find it a lot less stressful than living in Canada where every time I see a cop I get a little adrenaline rush of fear. Well are moving back to Vietnam and Romania to live? Most people living in Canada or US would have that freedom. Most people form Vietnam or Romania can't just pick up and move to Canada if they want to.
arjie 11y ago
In India, I hated interaction with the police because they'd try to shake me down for all sorts of reasons, multiple times a month. In America, I have only ever interacted with a policeman thrice in three years, and on every occasion he or she asked me if I needed help. One time I set off the fire alarm and they sent emergency services over. They came, investigated the situation, saw that I was just a terrible cook, gave me some advice and left. If India had the same notifying fire alarms, everyone would have them disabled because the probability of having to pay a bribe would be exactly 1.

by aianus 11y ago

nl 11y ago

Have you considered not speeding? It also helps avoid the fines.

stefantalpalaru 11y ago
There are traffic scenarios where it's too dangerous to stick with the legal speed limits.
- CaptainZapp 11y ago
  I was about to downvote you, since I think this statemment is, well, moronic. Instead I kindly ask you to elaborate on just one situation, where exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. Edited to add : To be clear: Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous.
  - lmartel 11y ago
    If the posted speed limit is 55 and everyone but you is going 80, then exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. There's your situation. [Of course, you'd never get a ticket in this situation, and I think there are even legal provisions regarding respecting the "flow of traffic" in some US states.]
    - Angostura 11y ago
      Just to be clear, don't try this in the UK. If everyone is going at 80, everyone will get a ticket, thanks to automated speed cameras.
      - saint_fiasco 11y ago
        Hypothetically, it it were true that going at 80 is safer because everyone else is going at 80, wouldn't you have to choose between a risk of paying a fine versus a risk of losing your life? That sounds messed up.
    - Amezarak 11y ago
      > [Of course, you'd never get a ticket in this situation, and I think there are even legal provisions regarding respecting the "flow of traffic" in some US states.] This is exactly how I got my first ticket. I was moving with the flow of traffic, which was going about 15mph over the 55mph speed limit on a busy four lane divided highway. Highway Patrol flew up out of nowhere, angrily berated me for five minutes, and gave me a speeding ticket. Now I just go the speed limit. People cuss me out and flip me off, but that's preferable to paying several hundred dollars. (And for me, it turns out not to really be worth it anyway. Most places I go speeding saves me < 5 minutes, and I get much better gas mileage, up to 48mpg, accelerating slowly and not driving faster than 65mph.) Can you, by the way, cite any state laws explicitly saying it is OK to exceed the posted speed limit if doing so is required to move with the flow of traffic? I have heard this claim a lot but I have never been able to find real proof of it. There are sometimes "flow of traffic" laws applicable if you're driving too far below the posted speed limit, which is assumed (wrongly) to be the maximum "normal and reasonable" speed of normal traffic, and there are laws against driving slowly in the left lanes, and sometimes laws that allow you to speed while passing on a two-lane road, but I have never seen one that was applicable to someone driving at or above the speed limit and would have allowed them to legally speed.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    Safety in traffic depends, among other things, on the relative speed between you and the cars around you. When this relative speed gets out of a certain range, you and/or those around you are forced to make dangerous maneuvers increasing the risk of collision. With this in mind, think about scenarios where the average speed is above the legal limit: highways, rural roads with no known speed cams, etc. Now imagine heavy traffic and only one participant slowing down to the legal limit. Here's one US citizen's experience driving on highways in Italy, where I live, describing what safe driving looks like here: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-drive-above-the-speed-limit/answer/Alan-Chao https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-drive-above-the-speed-li...
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
      Rural roads you have to be careful speeding because people walk on them and tractors drive on them, and sometimes there are horses. If you're driving the limit and there's a bunch of people behind you, either (a) they can deal with it or (b) you can pull over and let them pass.
      - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        Rural road in northern Italy: https://www.google.it/maps/@45.4014223,8.955495,3a,75y,72.04h,93.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s70W0ZwnQ9tVmDYg0cRs9tw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en https://www.google.it/maps/@45.4014223,8.955495,3a,75y,72.04...
  - aianus 11y ago
    > Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous. No matter how fast a truck is driving, I don't want to be anywhere near it while driving my motorcycle. Those tires randomly explode (I've seen it happen multiple times) and when a piece hits you, you're dead. I pass them ASAP, no matter how fast I have to go to do it.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    Here's a pointer to a couple of engineering studies I found interesting, personally: https://www.motorists.org/blog/how-should-speed-limits-be-set/ https://www.motorists.org/blog/how-should-speed-limits-be-se...
- 1ris 11y ago
  This does not deserve to be downvoted. Driving too slow is as dangerous as driving to fast, or more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve
  - JimmyM 11y ago
    I think it has likely been downvoted by people from countries that do not speed. I have only ever seen Americans and Canadians talking about the necessity to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic (and they have a higher rate of fatal RTAs per 100,000 than most Western European countries – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... – Canada is close to Italy, a country that is well known in Western Europe for terrifying traffic, while America is closer to South American countries) While driving too slow is as dangerous as driving too fast, it's not as dangerous as the Solomon curve suggests, according to the article you linked: > Reporting on these results in 1971, academics West and Dunn confirmed the findings of Solomon and Cirillo,[11] but found that crashes involving turning vehicles accounted for 44 percent of all crashes observed in the study and that excluding these crashes from the analysis greatly attenuated the factors that created the U-shape of the Solomon curve. The topic of this conversation also seems to oddly mirror the course of the story from the original article. Minor acts of breaking a just law, justified on an individual basis, lead to a society in which regularly breaking that law is accepted – and indeed enforced – by the state. That is probably why people are downvoting your parent comment. For the record I don't have the ability or the desire to have the ability to downvote.
    - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      > Italy, a country that is well known in Western Europe for terrifying traffic Is it? The death toll is average to low compared to the rest of Europe: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/gis/mapcare_fatal_2014.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/gis/mapcare_fa... And it's low compared to the rest of the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
Cthulhu_ 11y ago
I was going to say that too, but in corrupt countries, you'll get fined for speeding whether you were speeding or not - and expected to bribe the 'officer' regardless. It's not paying a policeman something then and there that's the problem - for you it'd become the fine for speeding - but it's having to pay without having done anything wrong. It's the power abuse associated with it that's wrong.
- roddux 11y ago
  This happened to me in Vietnam. A police officer pulled over me and a friend as we rode past, then came up with a story about us having 'incorrect papers'. Later found out from the owner of the hostel that the same thing had happened to most of his guests for the entire season!
  - aianus 11y ago
    While I can't say for sure, you probably did have incorrect papers. I drove the whole time there without proper registration or a valid license because it was basically impossible to obtain them as a foreigner. I tried my best and it just wasn't happening and the advice I got was to act dumb and pay off anyone who tried to stop me.
  - megablast 11y ago
    To ride in Vietnam you do need a Vietnamese drivers license, so he was not wrong.
- nl 11y ago
  True. But fortunately from that point of view the OP now appears to be in Canada.
CamperBob2 11y ago
You sound white.

anovikov 11y ago

Other side of the life is chaos, crime, pollution and insecurity, and not unimportant for the crowd here, low company valuations vs their profits in those countries. Exactly because laws don't work. No startups in the proper sense can exist in such conditions, because contracts can't enforced, intellectual property rights can't be protected, and venture capital is impossible because money can be only loaned for the physical collaterial - everything else like equity is just paper. Also East Europe is a big place, and it is all different. What works in Russia or Ukraine might work only in a limited way in Hungary and the Baltics, and don't work at all in Slovakia. In Europe, it strongly depends on the fraction of Orthodox population. There is nothing like that in Czech Republic, for example. Interestingly wealth doesn't change that. Cyprus is rich, and Greece used to be rich until recently, and they are ridden with corruption from top to bottom.

sithadmin 11y ago
>In Europe, it strongly depends on the fraction of Orthodox population. Wait, what? Mind unpacking that idea a bit?
- anovikov 11y ago
  Just an observation. Orthodox people are prone to corruption because they see every organized structures except church as 'foreign'. For example, theft on the workplace (being it a government or private employer) is culturally OK for them, they don't even try to hide it from the people they know. Any collaboration with the government (even reporting crime not being its direct victim or family member) is a no-no. A cop can't be a friend, they mostly make friends between themselves. etc. etc.

jacquesm 11y ago

So, do you speed in Canada?

MichaelGG 11y ago
Everyone seems to go 10-20kmh over depending on the road, at least in southern Ontario. On the 407 it's closer to 30 over and if I stayed at 100 it'd be rather uncomfortable (and after being away for a while, I woulda sworn it was 120). At 50 they can roadside impound and suspend license. The only point the GP has is that corruption is the oil of bureaucracy. In Guatemala, for instance, they started this whole anti-corruption drive a bit ago. Didn't really help; the president and vice president are now in jail for their part in a massive theft of taxes. But for the regular people? Importing a container? Good luck. Before, you could pay the clerks to work overtime and move you to the top of the pile after 5pm. Now they've got all these annoying receipt systems so you have no way of doing this unless you're a serious player and turn a ton of people. Who wins here?

frozenport 11y ago

Most Russians are terrified of the police, because they know that they can ask for a `bribe` even if you haven't done anything wrong. The problem with corrupt isn't that the rules benefit one party or another, rather that they are unpredictable.

aianus 11y ago
In Canada everybody speeds all the time. In fact, it would be unsafe not to speed on the 401 as you'd be driving considerably slower than everyone else. So the enforcement randomness is the same, it's just the penalties are stiffer and longer-lasting.
- praxulus 11y ago
  People don't get speeding tickets for going with the flow of traffic. And no, it really isn't unsafe to go at the speed limit. Driving at 20mph on a highway can cause problems, but going 10-15mph slower than traffic in the rightmost lane is not going to cause any accidents.
  - tedks 11y ago
    Unless you're black, or maybe also a muslim, or a sikh wearing a turban, or a native american. Unless the cop on that stretch has a quota to fill. Unless you're unlucky. Power is just as capricious, wherever you are in the world. People that select to be in positions of power are rarely the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. I see where the comment parent is coming from.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      Or unless you are driving a fancier car than others, or at wrong time of day, or parked next to the wrong guy. Unless you're unlucky. However: > People that select to be in positions of power are rarely the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. I think this is an exaggeration. People that select to be in positions of power are not always the kind of people who can be trusted to always execute that power honestly. The difference in degree of corruption in a country is roughly the same thing as the trustability of people in positions of power.

MrPatan 11y ago

I congratulate you on your relevant choice of username.

ljf 11y ago

Efficient for you as you can easily (I presume) pay the bribes... but for 99% of people what impact does this have on their life, when they can also end up being forced to pay when they AREN'T breaking the law.

rdtsc 11y ago

> I personally find it a lot less stressful than living in Canada where every time I see a cop I get a little adrenaline rush of fear. Well are moving back to Vietnam and Romania to live? Most people living in Canada or US would have that freedom. Most people form Vietnam or Romania can't just pick up and move to Canada if they want to.

arjie 11y ago

In India, I hated interaction with the police because they'd try to shake me down for all sorts of reasons, multiple times a month. In America, I have only ever interacted with a policeman thrice in three years, and on every occasion he or she asked me if I needed help. One time I set off the fire alarm and they sent emergency services over. They came, investigated the situation, saw that I was just a terrible cook, gave me some advice and left. If India had the same notifying fire alarms, everyone would have them disabled because the probability of having to pay a bribe would be exactly 1.