School was out. For a
change, I was the one making a quick jaunt to the grocery store. Elizabeth asked how long it would take for us
to get there and I replied, “Just two minutes.”
In actuality, it took about an hour and half or maybe even two.
Traffic was heavy on the ring road and there was the usual
confusion of who belongs where on a 4-lane road without lines, parked cars on
the right, and commuter busses pulling out into traffic. A jam was forming around the entrance to the
big grocery store, Auchan. The taxi in
front of me stopped but I didn’t. I
bumped his bumper. We were hardly
moving, which was a good thing, but it was enough for my license plate to touch
up against his bumper. And so there we
stopped. And there we stayed – blocking
traffic and just adding to the chaos.
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| The red van is parked. We blocked the next lane being used as a turn lane into the grocery store. |
The taxi driver got out for a look and started calling
someone. I got out for a look and
started calling George. Next, the taxi
no longer had a taxi light on top of the car.
Even after 16 years in Ukraine, I still didn’t assume anything odd about
that. I attributed it to the fact he was
no longer available to take customers. A
friend later revealed it was more likely he was driving a taxi without a
license and wanted to hide any evidence from the police. Just goes to show, my upbringing of “innocent
until proven guilty” is firmly implanted.
Okay, so we both take some pictures and George sends our
friend, Pasha, to come help me since he’s out in another village a good 45
minutes away. The taxi driver asks me if
we’re going to sit there until morning.
I said I had no idea. He wanted
me to pay him some money. Without moving
his car forward even an inch, there was no way to tell if there was a mark on
his bumper or not. We have insurance so I
thought we might as well let this thing play itself out. The taxi driver called the police. About 45 minutes since the accident occurred,
Pasha and a police car arrive on the scene at about the same time. Pasha took over communicating with the police
officers who primarily sat in their patrol car and wrote up paperwork.
Pasha took a look at the dashcam I have to see what
happened. That’s when he got the
suspicion that the other driver wasn’t really a taxi driver. Pasha wrote up my testimony and I scribbled on
a line that stated it was my testimony.
The police confiscated my driver’s license and gave me a temporary
one. After the police had taken some
pictures and measured distances, we were allowed to move our cars off the
road. A little bit later, signatures
here and there, and we were good to go.
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| It's hard to see the damage because we're not sure there is any. |
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| There may some scratches but it's hard to tell if it's just the dirt. |
I waited for a week before the text message came from the
court telling me when to appear before the judge. The
appointment was slated for one week later at 8:25am. Thankfully, George was available to go with
me.
It was a stressful morning as the typical 20-minute or less
drive into town took an hour and we were late for the appointment. I telephoned but no one answered. We found a
parking place right outside the courthouse and passed through the unattended
security booth. A cleaning lady gave us
directions on where to go. Up two
flights of stairs, a small group of people lined the hallway. We found the door with the judge’s name on it
and found out from those in line that we would be admitted according to our
appointment time and they were running about 20 minutes behind. [Sigh of relief.] When my turn came, we went into the first
room with the secretaries and then through another door to the judge’s office
which looked identical to every government office I’ve ever been in. Two desks pushed against each other with one
chair at the end for the guest. The
windows opened onto a major Kyiv city street, muffling the judge’s voice. I leaned in to understand better. She asked if I spoke Ukrainian and I said
Russian was better. After a couple of
sentences, it was clear that she was more comfortable in Ukrainian and she
turned to George, hoping he’d be able to understand and translate. He offered to help. The judge confirmed my identity and then asked
me if the police had told me my rights and the charge. Both of which I had not been informed
of. She briefly summarized with a
cursory glance at a law book. The
charge: I failed to keep a safe distance between cars. Did I accept the charge? Yes, I did.
She said I’d need to return a week later to pick up the court decision
and bring back proof that I paid the $15 fine at a bank. She scribbled the address of the police
station where I could pick up my driver’s license after receiving the court
decision.
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| The courthouse |
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| A picture of the courthouse from Google - obviously the building's been painted and is looking better now. |
When we returned for the court decision, we didn’t know
where to go. The judge’s office was
locked shut. George asked in a few other
offices where to go and we found our way to the back end of the courthouse and
up an old flight of stairs to room #17.
Broken and unwanted cabinets stood outside the door at the top. Cardboard covered a hole in the landing. We asked the lone man sitting in the tan
vinyl chair if there was a line. He
wasn’t sure how the system worked so George inquired inside and we were told to
wait until the lady at the far end was finished with her patron. When he left, we entered. Surprisingly, she was very helpful, made two
copies of our bank receipt, and directed us to return to the judge’s office for
the decision. When we told her it was
locked, she went herself to take a look.
Another worker on the second floor confirmed that no one was there. The lady from room #17 was a bit disturbed
that the judge’s secretary wasn’t there and told us to return the next
day. Even though it wasn’t a receiving
day, the judge’s secretary should be there and would give us the paper we
needed.
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| The landing before room #17 |
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| Stacks of papers and an old cabinet before the door of room #17 |
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| You can see the covered hole in the landing. |
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| The staircase to room #17 |
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| Some of the unwanted cabinets outside room #17 |
The next day we passed through the security booth after
giving a picture ID and went up to the judge’s office. The secretary immediately looked through a
pile of papers and pulled out mine, had me sign it, and then took it back
downstairs to the other end of the courthouse, down another hallway. We lost track of him and returned to the
foyer to wait. It appeared he was doing
this step on his own. He found us and
tried using a bit of English to tell us we could take this paper to the police
station and receive my license back.
We’d need to come back a week later to get the final court decision
after the appeal period was over. Who
was going to appeal a guilty plea? I
guess that didn’t matter.
A week later we returned to the courthouse. Again the judge’s office was locked so we
went to room #17 to see if the final decision was available there. After waiting a while, George inquired inside
whom to ask for the final decision and we were directed to the man in the back,
next to the lady we hand spoken to the week before. He found my paperwork in a tied bundle of
other cases on the shelves, had me sign my name on a slip of paper, and gave me
a copy of the decision. The next
instructions were to go to room #20 for the stamp. THE STAMP!
Nothing in Ukraine is official without THE STAMP! Deeper into the bowels of the courthouse we
went to room #20. The lady inside said
the one and only person with the stamp was not there. We would need to wait. We waited for quite some time until the man
came back. I brought my paper to him and
asked for a stamp. With great authority,
he stamped the decision.
Off we went to the insurance company to turn in a copy of
the court decision. They made a
photocopy and said that’s all we needed to do.
It was finished!
Two trips to the insurance office, four trips to the
courthouse, one trip to bank, one trip to the police station. A lot of time spent waiting. Hopefully there’s never a next time, but if
there is, we’ll know how much time it’ll take to deal with the official
channels. Considering how inefficient
the court is, maybe it’ll be worth it to just give some money to the other
driver?
