In most countries traffic laws are placed to promote safe driving and save people’s lives. In Lebanon though, speed limits and fines are mainly a source of income for the government, not safeguards that are supposed to make Lebanon’s streets a safer place.

Speed guns and radars are usually in plain sight. Hell, some countries like Qatar and Italy even place signs and flashing lights before the speed radars to warn you, so you slow down. That might seem counterintuitive to us, after all the point of the speed radars is to catch speeding vehicles, right? WRONG!

Speed radars are supposed to make us slow down. So, when you warn me of a speed radar, I will slow down, regardless of the real reason (which is saving a 50,000LBP fine). If you hide, catch me then send me a ticket a month later, the delayed conditioning (I’m a psyc minor, remember?) has virtually no effect whatsoever on our driving habits, it just makes me curse the police and become 50,000LBP poorer.

Some Psychology

Studies have shown that this form of delayed punishment, is utterly useless and you are just as likely to speed. Studies have also shown that when you associate a conditioned stimulus (CS -> the signs) that always appears prior to another unconditioned stimulus (US -> the actual radar) that leads to a certain response (R -> slowing down), the CS will induce the R even without the US. In other words, when I see a sign that there is a radar, I will assume there is indeed a radar ahead, so I will slow down (without the need to be caught by the radar which is the US). So, that way everyone is happy.

Proposed Solution

BUT, in Lebanon, we know signs mean nothing. So, I’d suggest we put dummy radars all over the place. We tell drivers some are real, some are dummies (since we can’t afford to spend too much on speed radars). Not knowing though, you’re more likely to stay below the speed limit just in case that particular radar is in fact real. This way, most of us will remain within the speed limit

Till Then, Some Hiding Spots of the ISF

1- The Port region.

These guys hide directly after the tiny bridge that links you Gemmayzeh-MTCtouch through the Charles Helou station. So, they’re after a blind curve in the road, making them impossible to see before it’s too late.

2- The Ring (Rink?)

This strip of highway is sorta like two consecutive bridge. The ISF cars hide at the trough between them, making it hard to slow down since you see them pretty late during your descent from the first bridge. Oh, and the speed there is just 50kph, I was clocked in and fined at 72kph once -_-

3- Anfeh-Tripoli

This is the most sinister. The ISF hide in the cover of short palm trees in the middle of the highway, on a curve. You’d have to be a super-human to spot them. This radar caught me, and I was extraordinarily pissed at how low they’d go. Especially since I deactivated my speed-limiter only seconds earlier…

4- Dbayeh Hypco Station

That’s the pic I posted above. I was going on a Weekly Leak fact-finding mission when I spotted the car by mistake, prompting this post. They hide inside the walls of the construction site adjacent to the Hypco Station a hundred meters after “Boutique Mall”

I hope this helps! And refer to an older post if you’re more tech-savvy and want a more interactive method to keep track of the ISF’s sneaky money-grabbing escapades.