9 July 2007

The Joy of Paying Traffic Fines

I just noticed the most awkward thing. On the Bahrain E-Government webpage, theres a little poll visitors can vote on. Now, most polls ask questions that have more than one obvious answer. This was pretty funky though:



See that little red circle? Lets zoom in on that poll:



"Do you like to pay your traffic contraventions?"

Ok.. a bunch of things here. NO ONE, and I mean no one in full mental capacity who hasn't been hit on the head with a shovel recently, likes to pay fines, especially traffic fines, you pay them because you have to! Second of all, Contraventions? Contraventions?! Did the person who came up with this question write it down on Microsoft Word and then go through the Theasaurus to try and make it sound more clever?

But thats not the funny thing. No, not at all. The funny thing is by the time I checked, almost 480 people has voted, 44% of them actually said yes! Who are these people?! And 7% of the people turned out to be total idiots and had no idea whether they enjoyed or didn't enjoy paying their traffic "contraventions". Probably because they didn't know what those words mean.

Ah, whats the point anymore...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indeed that was a silly question. What a shame that this big mistake is shown in the main government portal and nowhere else.

Somebody should send them an email to notify them about this flaw.

Thank you,
T

Anonymous said...

somebody should make an aBBoinTEHment and go talk to them!!

a contravention is actually not a fine, its the violation for which you may have to pay a fine..

aaah...who cares..
must get that aBBOIntehMENT!!

btw, what happens if i refuse to get a stupid card??

i*maginate said...

looool "webesite"

I think it's just a language issue. Perhaps it could mean "Do you like to go and pay your fines yourself?"

I have no idea, but the question makes me giggle..

Ammaro said...

im pretty sure its a language issue, but considering this is the side of Bahrain ANYONE around the world can get to see, you would assume they would have asked someone with reasonable English skills to work on it. Contraventions indeed.

As for not getting the card, well, I really have no idea what the consequences "refusing" to get it are; Bahraini nationals cannot renew their CPR and have to get a smart card, and this will be enforced to expats as well soon.