Traffic Police: Night Shift

You are working a night checkpoint on a single closed lane. Cars come up one at a time, stop in front of you, and wait.

Stopping everybody is as wrong as waving everybody on.

WHAT YOUR EYES FIND
Switch the flashlight on and drag your finger to aim it. Seatbelt, phone in a hand, window tint, worn tyres, a dead lamp — everything you get to judge before you decide is out there on the car. Just keep the beam out of the driver's face; dazzling somebody costs you.

AT THE WINDOW
Ask for the licence, the registration, the ID. Run the plate and the person over the radio. Put them on the breathalyser. Compare the photograph on the licence with the face looking back at you — that is your job too, and it is where the forged ones come apart.

THE EXPENSIVE MISTAKE
Miss an offence and it costs you points. Cite somebody for something they were not doing and they complain: your standing drops, and your rank goes with it. When you are not sure, letting them go is also a decision.

A SHIFT AT A TIME
Five vehicles a night. Write the citation, collect the fine, climb the ladder from Cadet to Captain — or lose the standing you built by being too quick with a ticket.

TEN COUNTRIES, NOT TEN TRANSLATIONS
Pick the road you work and everything on it changes: the drivers' names, the plates, the currency, the cars, the offences and the words on the ticket. A German road is worked in euros with German names; a Japanese one in yen, with a plate that reads 品川 300. Turkey, the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea.

NO ACCOUNT, NO CONNECTION
Your record lives on your phone. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-in. Play it in the dark on the side of a road with no signal.

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