I don't see what distance has to do with it. You're still crossing the border from one country to another regardless if you live 5 minutes or 5 hours from the border. To be honest, his experience is not so bad. In pre-EU Europe (and probably even now with some non-EU countries, but I can't say since I haven't tried) this kind of behaviour was often par for the course, and many times worse when trying to leave your home country for any reason during communism.