Traveling through Zimbabwe recently, I was stopped and “arrested” for speeding just outside a small town. According to the radar-instrument (which was actually working, unlike many other we saw at roadblocks over the last couple of years), I was doing 68km/hour in a 60km zone.

ABOVE: Arrested for speeding and waiting for the cop to write out the fine…

As is typical in many African states, I was then given the choice between going to court the following day or paying an “on the spot”-fine right there. Well, I opted to pay the fine, and couldn’t decide whether I should cry or laugh when the ticket was handed to me:

Yes, the fine was no less than $40 000! Fortunately, it was Zimbabwean dollars, which at the time traded on the street at R1=Zim$ 140 000 against the SA Rand. This meant that I was fined just less than 30 South African cents (about 4 US$ cents)!

Anyway, just goes to show once again that Africa is a great place where you can always expect the unexpected ..