Road police force in Bulgaria

Not really my core competence will you say. Although it has a lot to do with productivity. I do not know if you have noticed (for those of you who travel abroad), that the Bulgarian police force is notably unproductive. During the last 23 years of driving probably 200.000 KM in Western Europe and America, I have been controlled less than 10 times. During the last 3 years I spent in Bulgaria, I have had on average 1 control per week, although I have driven less than 50.000 KM.

The role of a police force should be to prevent offenders to commit crime. It should concentrate on the crimes that have the most uggly consequences as its ressources are limited (due to the fact that nobody wants to pay tax, let us say, to prevent car drivers to drive with a speed of 51 KM if the speed limit is 50 KM).

In Bulgaria the opposite seems to hold true. Road police forces do only check misbehaviors in the places where the misbehaviors have the least uggly consequences. For example, they almost daily check drivers on the road from Sofia to Pleven after the bridge where the speed limitation applies (which means after that the uggly consequences of an accident on the bridge would have happen) or 10 meters before the end of a village, after the pedestrians have been killed.

By acting so, they reinforce the feeling of the normal drivers that road regulations are not here to prevent accidents, but to allow the state to collect taxes (and of course as we all know, the taxes are not collected for the state, but for other purposes).

The salaries of this police forces are pretty low, but their very low productivity and efficiency still generates huge costs for the tax payers. On one side, there are the unnecessary salaries, on the other the huge costs in terms of accidents and ruined lifes.

Interestingly, the police force seems to act like many quality control departments that can be found in typical Bulgarian companies. They check the quality after the products have been produced and eliminate the bad quality products. And of course, if the production director of the company thinks that the products are all good, then there will be no defects.

The role of the quality management department should be to make sure that bad quality products are not produced. Similarly the role of the road police force is to eduquate the drivers to make sure that accidents do not happen.

When will you start the revolution and force your politicians to act? This unproductivity is financed via your taxes and deducted from the money available to finance your school system and your economic development. You live in a democracy, not in a police state.

I would be deligthed to get your feedback.