Kiev - Road rage spread to top levels of Ukrainian government recently with the number two cop in the former Soviet republic cutting off the head of parliament in heavy traffic, and then giving him the finger. The SUV duel pitted Oleksy Kozha, vice commander of an elite traffic police unit called "Kobra" against Arseny Yatsenkiuk, the speaker of Ukraine's national legislature.
Yatseniuk, a pro-Europe politician and at 37 Ukraine's youngest- ever parliament speaker, had been picking his way down Kiev's Prospekt Pobedy (Victory Prospect), an eight-lane, tree-shaded esplanade through one of Kiev's best neighbourhoods.
In the Soviet era, Victory Prospect was popular for lovers' walks, but now the thoroughfare is jammed at most hours, and polluted 24/7, as the road is the main automotive link between the booming Kiev centre and its burgeoning Western bedroom communities.
Kozha, behind the wheel of late-model red Porsche Cayenne, was reportedly zig-zagging through heavy traffic at high speed. Such driving by the wealthy is common in Kiev, where unwritten traffic law permits violation of road regulations, provided one drives a particularly expensive automobile.
Unfortunately for Captain Kozha's up-to-that-point-successful police career, one of the vehicles cut off by the weaving Porsche was Yatseniuk's black Toyota Landcruiser. By both car value and government post, and according to the same unofficial but scrupulously enforced rules, Yatseniuk is a Ukrainian driver that other drivers offend at their peril.
What followed is embarassing for Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko's campaign to bring his country's roads up to European standards, and at the same time a fine example of how traffic law is not enforced on Ukrainian roads nowadays.
Yatseniuk accelerated, attempted to flag Kozha down, and received for his trouble Kozha's middle finger in the Cayenne's rear view mirror. The police officer stepped on the gas, and the Porsche rocketed into anonymity among the common automobiles.
The MP then, according to his account, reported Kozha's license plate to the national police force who, again according to Yatseniuk, failed for a full week to locate a late model, red Porsche Cayenne cruising about in Kiev at high speed.
"They (the police) were protecting one of their own," Yatseniuk alleged. "And so it was very lucky I happened to find the Porche by accident myself."
Yasteniuk's claim he stumbled onto the Cayenne has been widely questioned by Ukrainian media and government watchers, some even lampooning the idea of a vigilante Yatseniuk prowling the streets of Kiev in his Toyota, like a TV detective.
Most likely Yatseniuk did what most Ukrainian drivers do when they want to track down a vehicle - they get a friend in the police to run a check on the license or they just buy the police automotive data base illegally for 10 dollars, at one of the city's thriving bootleg CD markers, observers said.
Kozha, his cover blown, initially claimed he was innocent.
"I am a calm driver. I don't use rude gestures, and in any case I don't know how to insult someone using my finger," Kozha told reporters in late February. "I didn't do it."
The stand-off ended dramatically and unpleasantly for Kozha when President Yushchenko, Yatseniuk's political patron, threw Kozha and his boss out of a nationally-televised meeting of police bosses with the words: "You are sacked ... a shame to your uniforms ... leave immediately!"
In early March, Yushchenko declared his intention to dissolve the Kobra special police unit - a tacit admission of defeat in his campaign to reform the police, as Kobra had been formed, and Kozha hired, to root out corrupt traffic cops.
Yatseniuk has said he wants Kozha to explain to a judge, how on a 400 dollar monthly salary, a policeman can afford a 110,00 dollar Porsche. Kozha claimed he is the victim of a political vendetta, and that he will sue to clear his "name and honour."
But the problems on Kiev's increasingly crowded roads remain. Thousands of new cars are registered each month, car sales were up 50 per cent just over last year, and automobiles routinely drive on the sidewalks.
And now, cars may no longer be towed in Kiev because of a court challenge to the proposition a tow truck operator may legally touch a citizen's personal transport, no matter how illegally parked.
