Fair enough, you might utter, speeding is dangerous and the authorities can’t be too harsh when one’s life is at stake. And I quite agree.

So, armed with two speeding tickets and armfuls of good intentions, I set out one fine Friday to Green Point traffic department. I duly wait in line and hand my tickets to the girl behind the bullet proof glass counter. She types a number into the system and after five minutes looks at me dolefully and mutters something like ‘mouldy bees in the hive’. Bullet proof glass I’ve discovered is not a great sound transmitter, and at my blank expression she tries again, this time at the top of her voice. Turns out what she was trying to say was “This is an old fine, from 2005.”

You’d think I’d just pulled a gun on her the way the other ‘offenders’ in the queue glared at me. Maybe they were just irritated I was taking up so much time.

I nodded sheepishly and tried to push my R150 under the centimetre high crack below the glass towards her. She was having none of it. With her eyes glued to the computer screen, she read in silence for at least another five minutes, leaving me to sweat.

‘It appears’, she yells a moment later, ‘that there has been a warrant issued against you’. Thanks. I heard that one loud and clear.

‘As in for my arrest?’ I stammer. She nods gravely and says, ‘Please wait here.’ And disappears.

It was about then that I started shaking. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Every fibre in my being was screaming ‘RUN!’ but if I did, would they send a SWAT team after me? It was the most surreal experience. I kept looking behind me expecting a policeman to appear with handcuffs and physically take me into custody. And we all know the horror stories about holding cells. In this country they’re tantamount to a death sentence.

Another painful ten minutes ticks by. The queue grows longer, the people more unfriendly. I shrug nonchalantly at them all the while thinking, ‘there are way too many witnesses for me to make a dash for it.’

Finally she appears and says that I’m going to have to go to Wynberg Court and speak to the prosecutor. Like hell I’m going to voluntarily turn myself in, I think all the while nodding earnestly.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. The matter of my warrant however was far from over. By the time I got back to the office common sense had kicked in, along with a healthy dose of anger. How dare they treat me like this? I’m a law abiding citizen trying to do the right thing here and instead of taking my money and clearing my name, they send me all over Cape Town, get me to stand in more queues, make more admin and red tape for everyone involved and basically ruin everybody’s day.

Typical bloody bureaucracy.

But deep down I knew that I had to get this sorted out and today, else my weekend would be spent in a constant state of anxiety. I arranged to meet my boyfriend at the Wynberg Magistrates Court. Horrible place. Don’t ever go there if you can help it. It’s dirty, the lifts don’t work, everyone looks like a criminal…

And to make matters worse, my boyfriend walks through the metal detector with his ‘leatherman’ in his pocket (he’s a computer technician) which sets the thing off and amidst the clanging I nearly have a heart attack and dive for cover. Not helping my case.

The magistrate was nice enough, but even he looked at me through heavy lidded eyes and said, ‘counter one’. ‘But…’ I stammered. ‘Counter one,’ he said in his Darth Vador voice without batting an eyelid.

Oh God, now what?

We hurry downstairs again, by this stage I’ve lost ten kilo’s and am verging on dehydration due to excessive sweating. As it turns out, all I had to do was pay a hefty fine for being in ‘contempt of court’, plus my original fine. By that stage I would have gladly handed over a blank cheque I was so relieved not to have to go to jail.

The moral of this little story is to obviously to always pay your fines, if you can’t avoid getting them in the first place. It really isn’t worth the headache, trauma and anxiety associated with the consequences if you don’t. But the question flapping around in the back of my mind, even after all this is now over, and I’m a reformed traffic offender, is do they really not have anything better to do than target young girls who really do want to abide by the law? What about all the other drivers out there with decades of unpaid fines? Do they ever get their share of the limelight?