Hound Dog
Oct 27, 2009, 11:53 AM
Post #7 of 31
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I lived in the Puerto Vallarta area for 13 years and now live at Lake Chapala. I don't think it is any worse at Chapala than at PV. It may even be worse at PV. The important thing is never to pay the mordida.
I lived in the Puerto Vallarta area for 13 years and now live at Lake Chapala. I don't think it is any worse at Chapala than at PV. It may even be worse at PV. The important thing is never to pay the mordida.
Interesting, sanjuan:
We were harassed a bit by the cops in Guadalajara and in Ajijic when we first moved here in 2001 and had California plates although we have seldom been hassled since we started driving a Mexican plated car and since my wife mastered Spanish pretty well. We haven´t paid mordida since about 2003 or before but the motorcycle cop I am speaking of is a special case. Our Mexican friends tell us that he harasses them as well and his reputation in the Mexican community at Lakeside is that he simply is obsessed with issuing multas. In fact, the day he stopped me in front of the Farmacia Guadalajara (he loves that spot) claiming I had run a red light, he never even asked for mordida but immediately started writng me a ticket.
COP: You ran that red light.
DAWG: No I did not even though it turned to yellow as I was well into the intersection and you were not even looking in my
direction at the time but chatting with a motorist coming in the opposite direction with your back turned to me.
COP: I say you ran the light.
DAWG (unwisely): You are lying.
SECOND COP APPROACHING ON FOOT: Aw, just paY him his mordida.
DAWG: He is lying.
COP: Well, if that´s your attitude I also noticed that you passed a car turning left at the light on the right. I´m going to give you a ticket for passing on the right as well.
DAWG: Just give me the GD ticket. (which he obligingly did - I do not recommend this sort of discourse with a cop)
Well, this multiple moving violation type of ticket in California would earn you a very large fine, points toward revocation of your license or traffic school and a substantial increased insurance premium. It cost me $270 Pesos in Chapala because I paid the fine the next day. The fine wasn´t worth fighting over.
Come to think of it when I put it that way, I prefer the system here to California´s rigorously honest system where there is no way you are going to bribe a highway patrolman. After all, the fine was insignificant and I incurred no points, at least to my knowledge, and my insurance company did not raise my rate.
I might add that I did not offer him mordida because I was offended by what I considered an injustice perpetrated by an arrogant cop when I had done nothing wrong at all. I can´t say that I am against the mordida system if I have actually committed a moving violation and it sure beats wasting a driving day going before a judge or into the police station. In fact, as Dawg was raised in the deep south of the U.S.in the 1950s, I´m used to not only crooked cops on the take but crooked judges and mayors and aldermen and gas station operators as well and, if memory serves me, an African American family driving through my hometown circa 1953 with Illinois plates either paid mordida at the inevitable local speed trap or had the life expectancy of a gnat. That was an important source of income in those days before the interstate highways. Mexico didn´t start this nor does it have a patent on this sort of fund raising.
I also like driving in a country where speed limits are unenforced and, unlike California, slower drivers never hog the left lane if they value their lives. I also like the fact that nobody ever seems to get a traffic ticket in Chiapas where there are few foreigners. The other great thing about driving in Oaxaca and Chiapas once you get used to it is that two lane autopistas with wide regulation shoulders automically are trasformed from two to temporarily four lane roads (with one lane a bit on the small side) as local driving customs down there obligate slower traffic to drive on that shoulder to allow faster traffic to pass and, let me tell you if you ever plan to drive down there, locals are not kidding about this custom. At first this is a frightening experience but after you get used to it you wonder why they don´t do that everywhere.
The more I think about it and that 3,000 kilometer RT drive between Chapala and Chiapas at breakneck speeds where everyone else is still passing you, the more I am pleased that I live in Mexico even with the occasional rogue cop about.
(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Oct 27, 2009, 1:15 PM)
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