Dumb Laws in Colombia (South America)

[Javier MdR]

Beforte anything please forvige my English, that may seemd a little bit odd to you; as I am an Spanish speacker.

Here there are some of our Colombian "Pearls" :

Javier MdR

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1. You can buy a knife in any market or warehouse… but carrying a knife with you is illegal.

2. Only the president and its escorts or bodyguards are authorised to NOT to respect any traffic signal (traffic lights included).

3. The social security system covers almost any organ transplant (liver, kidney, etc.)… BUT the social security system does not ‘cover’ the medicines required to the transplant to be effective; so you have to establish a legal action against the hospital that attended you -before the transplant- and then the hospital will provide the medicines.

4. There is one day in the year in Bogotá (capital city), in which personal cars are not allowed, only public service cars (taxis and busses) are allowed to move on the streets.

5. No matter how many felonies you have carried out to commit a crime, you will be only sentenced for the one with represents the higher number of years in prison. For example, you knock down a police officer and stoles his gun, with that gun you break a glass, breack into a house, robbed the house and killed the owner.

In Colombia, you will be 'prosecuted' for: Assaulting the officer (4+ years), Disrespect to the authority (2+ year), Robbery to an officer (5+ years), Entering into a house without permission (5+ years), Damages to third’s property (4+ years), Robbery and assault (5+ years) Carrying a weapon with you (4+ years), Wearing a gun (5+ years) and Killing someone (30 years)… BUT you will be only 'convicted' for killing a man with the maximum penalty (35 years in prison).

6. National Anthem must be played in every radio station at 6am and 6pm.

7. You can't work on nor wash your car in the street.

8. A pedestrian cannot walk in front of a car when the engine is on.

9. You cannot turn to the left with your car (at any time) in any intersection.

10. You cannot turn to the right with your car (at any time) when the traffic light is in red.

11. Traffic lights cease working at 11pm (they all remain in ambar).

12. Criminal offenders with penalties from 1 to 4 years, do not go to prison. There is something called "House as a Jail", so they will be sent home to serve their time.

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[DustyBottoms]

Very interesting.

Welcome to the board! I can understand your English very well...

[RK.]

I think #9 is really interesting. It must be really hard to go down a dead end street since you can only get on the street by turning right. Not to mention a one way street onto which you could not turn onto if your are going the wrong direction on the cross street. I have a feeling that a lot of drivers simply ignore the law.

[sinecure]

Welcome, Javier MdR!

We here in the US have some very similar laws.... many vary from State to State. In my State of California, we can buy a gun [if it is on a list of "approved" guns] but can't carry it on your person with out some sort of hard-to-get permit.

Our Government officials can disregard all traffic laws as well. Our very busy freeways are often completely shut-down for some government idiot's motorcade. Intersections are blocked to allow them to proceed unimpeded. This makes me very angry.... we should insist that the people's employees act like employees, and not as some kind of royalty.

It is often the case that our criminals are not sentenced for every crime that they committed while in the process of commit5ting a greater crime. These are often considered "lesser included offenses" and are usually ignored.

In many cities, you are not allowed to wash your car or perform maintenance in the street. In my city, you can not park you car on your front lawn. Any car parked on the street must be moved every 72 hours or it can be towed away. It will cost you about $200 to get it back.

Some states have intersections that do not allow left turns and selected intersections.... in order to make a 90* change in direction to the left, you must proceed through the intersection and make a 270* right turn, after which you'll bew heading the same direction as you would have if you'd made a left turn at the intersection. These are locally called "jug handles".

Certain intersections here prohibit right turns on a red light. There is always a sign telling you if it is prohibited at a particular intersection. The reason is usually a "blind" corner [you can't see oncoming traffic] or a left-turn signal for approaching traffic.

Some traffic lights in rural and residential areas are timed to turn to blinking amber at a very late hour. Nothing makes me feel more silly than waiting for a red light to change to green at 3AM with nobody around for miles.... [except that traffic cop who's hiding and waiting for you to run the light.http://www.kurts-smilies.de/grinser.gif

We also have "house arrest", and the "prisoners" usually have a transmitter on their ankle that allows the Parole/Probation department to know where they are at all times. Recently, a fairly famous U.S. TV personality, Martha Stewart had to wear one of these for a few months.

Seems that we both have some Dumb Laws to deal with, huh?

Again, welcome...

[Idnew]

Welcome, Javier MdR! Yeah we have some pretty dumb laws in the USA also. Don't worry about how you write as long as we can make it out pretty good. We got some on here that has more problems writing than you do.

[Javier MdR]

Hi there guys,

I don’t know if this may fit here… but here it goes anyway!

Here the congress has just approved the “Abortion Law” in which mothers are allowed by law (1) to abort, ONLY in any of the following cases: Rape, Baby Malformation (that does not allow the creature to survive after he/she is born), or, when the mother’s life is at risk because of the delivery (just those three reasons). Giving all this clear, the funny thing about this law are:

.- ‘Fathers’ are not prosecuted when an illegal abortion is carried out, just mothers do time in jail, no matter if it was an agreed decision taken and agreed between both of them, and,

.- The Roman Catholic church (majority in Colombia) –is of course, against any abortion- has decided (with a cleric law) to excommunicate EVERY SINGLE doctor that practises any legal abortion ordered by the law. Molesters, offenders, rapists and illegal abortion clinics are okay before the “eyes of God”, but doctors and raped mothers will immediately be excommunicated.

(1) Allowed by law, means that in Colombia abortion is completely illegal, but in the cases I have here-above explained, the law shall not prosecute the mother.

[Idnew]

Javier this was one of our longest running threads about abortion

http://www.tdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=6097