@rakovsky
2. Birmingham, Alabama during the 80's was on the FBI's most dangerous place in the world list. The crack epidemic led to the city hiring police officers from other cities when they got fired for being too violent, which led to the world's most violent police force. By the mid 90's, with revitalization of the worst parts, those officers were being weeded back out. "Head Crackers" were how they were referred to in conversation.
So, given that this was a decades old conversation, in my memory, I assumed the officer was fired for probably roughing up that foreigner. I have another story of being a pizza delivery driver for a summer there, and I rolled through a stop sign in a rain storm trying to read street signs, and being as compliant as I could, scared to death of these officers, I still ended up with my face in a water rushing through the streets with a boot in my neck. Those guys didn't play. Who knows, maybe that foreigner was there on a diplomatic mission... not sure.
Cosmic,
That makes sense. In the US (where I'm from and live, I've had good and bad experiences with police. The best ones were either talking to them off the clock or when they pulled me over for something I did bad and let me go. Like one time one of them commiserated to me about dogs being dangerous and said he carries mace.
A funny time was when a state police officer from my own state pulled me over when I was driving in the left lane for miles on an interstate, which is an offense. He berated me about an unnamed offense, saying he'd been following me for 8 miles. I just listened and answered his questions. Then he asked me at the end if I'd been drunk driving, and I said No, and then he left me, saying, "I'm outta here", with no citation.
I'm from the rural northeast and get the impression that southern police are alittle worse. My Mom saw a cop in Charleston dragging a black youth by the hair about 10-15 years ago. She felt intimidated to say anything herself.
If the officer in your story roughed up a foreigner like your gutter story, it makes sense that he could have gotten fired for that. If he's a foreigner and gets physically abused, the natural course of action for them is to call their embassy. Especially if we are talking about someone who is either from a 1st world country or someone politically/financially well off from a poorer country, they could make a big deal about it.
I spent under a year in countries east of the EU in the 2000's in my college years being just a student, and it felt like a mixed blessing or rather put me in a weird category in relation to police there. In my personal experience it meant that even if their governments were considered authoritarian, their police were less likely to do something bad because they didn't want a diplomatic scandal.
Let's say you are the US student caught by a young-aged patrol, peeing on an apartment building wall with your local friend in the evening because you don't know where any bathroom is and your local friend has to go. So your local friend is super respectful and you don't say anything. Then one says humorously, "American blend". Even supposing that you had cigarettes, the problem with anything like that is that it's not good to be caught "bribing" an officer. So... then one young officer says to the other, "Foreigners are not to be touched," and they walk away.
But it's still intimidating, although mixed. Like the NATO-allied countries have tasers that on occasion kill people, but theose other countries don't. Instead they have flexible metal-based batons and machine guns.
3. You're right, and I remember seeing those roundabouts... which Alabama is putting everywhere now. Even now, I am still intimidated, and I will drive an extra 15 miles to avoid them. Back then... I would have probably wet myself in London, Haha. I hate roundabouts... not because I am not sure what to do in them, but because 90% of everyone else here doesn't know what to do with their either. For us... they are a stupid idea. There's one in my town that almost always has a car setting in the middle, wrecked, because the driver wasn't expecting to see that weirdness.
That makes sense. One of the scariest road designs I've seen in the US is reversible roads in Atlanta. There's a three lane two-direction road, where the middle lane is for both directions.
Practically all citations/convictions that many or most people ever get have been related to me driving a car. Parking tickets, driving right on a No Turn on Red intersection, speeding. You can say that those things were all my fault, but you can also say that driving created a situation where I was more likely to commit offenses and get cited for them than other situations.
On top of that, driving in countries with a different set of road rules/laws and police that don't necessarily follow the same rules/laws seems to create logistical difficulties. Canada is a different country, but it's very much like the US in terms of culture, legal heritage, and especially driving situations. I visited Canada 6-10 times in my life and it was always on US bus trips or family car trips and I didn't notice much different about driving there.
Then another problem is city driving. I think I never drove in NYC, because it's always been too intimidating for me. So driving in a big European city would also be intimidating. And if I haven't studied the language or road signs, it gets more intimidating.
I guess rural UK could be OK for driving. Alot of the UK has mass transportation though so it might not be necessary. But the longer I would live in the rural UK, the more convenient it would seem to have a car.
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