[pepsi_junkie]

By the way, I was in Spain with several other colleagues and we were stopped by the Spanish Guardia Civil. These were the guys in the old days that arrested you and you were never heard from again. The spanish always told us "don't worry about the police. Except the Guardia Civil, don't cross them".

So we were pulled over, ostensibly for speeding though it was marginal at best. The cop said we could pay him a fine of approx $200 on the spot (cash only) and that would settle the matter or we could go to court which would require us to spend several days in a spanish jail.

We paid. And by the way, we felt like we were robbed.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Same thing happened to me in a small town in Texas in the summer of 1981. I felt I was robbed too but it beat spending time in a hot, humid jail cell.