Oh My Law'd

An interesting thing happened the other day which got me a pondering. Interesting things do not happen as often as you might think, so I made a mental note to myself to write about it in my blog. And so we find ourselves here (and I promised a story on food. Dammit. I should reread my own blog from time to time)

Anyway, the incident to which I refer was whilst I was travelling from A to B in a taxi. As per usual attempts to break the land speed record in a Toyota Corolla were well underway, when a police roadblock appeared in front. After deploying the parachutes and clunking to a halt, a check of the car and its occupants was made. Police roadblocks are not uncommon and seem to serve a number of purposes:

To check drivers actually have licences to drive
To deter overloading of taxis (1 person per seat – children don't count)
To check people are wearing seat belts
To prevent the landspeed record from actually being broken

Whilst we were being checked, a pick up truck (or bakkie as they are known here) pulled up with 15-20 people crammed in the open back and were ushered along their way by the policeman. This is perfectly legal – you cannot have more than one person per seat in a car in Namibia, rightly so, but there is no number limit for people in the open back of a truck. Putting aside the fact that this method of transportation is absolutely vital for many people to get to their homes in rural areas, this seems to me to be a slightly odd law.

This got me thinking about laws, and the odd ones I have encountered around the world. (Being an Englishman, I’m only too familiar that I hail from a country which still has some bizarre laws theoretically in effect, some from medieval times. In fact, I’ve been astounded when meeting other travellers about just how many other people are aware of the odds laws in my country. I forget how many conversations have erred around “bails of hay” and “London taxis”. I once met an American who thought Paris was a part of London, but if I had the chance to meet him again, I’m almost certain he could rattle of the fact that it is legal to shoot a Scotsman with a crossbow in York on a Sunday).

Another Namibian peculiarity is to do with the movement of meat. There is an imaginary line running across the country and about four fifths of the way up it. As I understand it, this line is for veterinary purposes - all meat reared below it can be used for industry and exported, all meat above the line is for public consumption or private sale only. Furthermore, meat in any form cannot be transported from North to South even for private use. Whilst in principle I understand this, in practice it lacks the thing which many stupid laws around the world no doubt lack - a bit of common sense. Even meat bought in a supermarket in the north – thereby being industrial and forced to comply with veterinary laws – cannot be moved South.

Namibia is not the place with the stupidest laws in the world which I have come across though. Not by a far stretch. For that, I’d have to turn to New Zealand.

Most of you who live or have been to New Zealand will, I’m sure, think I am referring to the “turning right” rule of driving: If you are driving along the road, perfectly minding your own business, perhaps whistling along to the eighties hit which is doubtless on the radio, you may well have somebody cut across immediately in front of you coming from the other direction, forcing you to spill your steak and cheese pie all down your lap. And they would be in the right. You see, cutting across oncoming traffic is your right of way in New Zealand. And that’s just odd.

But no. This is not the craziest. The craziest law in New Zealand relates to drinking and socializing on or around public holidays. I happened to be there on Good Friday in 2006 and, after a long day of travelling, decided to pop into a friendly looking bar for a drink. And was refused. I could only have a drink if I was getting food, and even the was restricted to two drinks and a two hour time out. I kid you not. If this wasn’t enough a big rugby match was due to play that evening. We were told that the match could be shown but without sound. “Why? Does Jesus get offended by the commentary?” was the rather amusing retort of an embittered local. What does make this story a bit more tolerable was not only the fact that the staff seemed genuinely as annoyed as we were about having to turn away custom but also their resourcefulness at rescuing something out of a crazy situation. At the stroke of midnight, thus ending the day of Good Friday, the bar opened again to one and all. I’d long got fed up and left by this point, but I do hope they had a great evening and made up for lost time.