Rant – Mexico’s Cops: What Use Are They?

After a better than expected stroll through Acapulco (the traffic wasn’t as bad as we had read it was going to be and the roads were pretty good) we get extorted by some cops. They must do this a lot because they set things up perfectly. Basically it went down like this we were on our way out of Acapulco and just crested the 200+ meter hill that blocked our way. At the top we took a breather. Kevin had waited for me to catch up so he had time to notice a cop car sitting there at the top too. After catching our breath we start heading down. About half way down the hill I see a cop car drive by and start waving at Kevin to pull over. Great! What did we do? Ride too far out on the road or something? We both pull over and the rotund cop with shades starts talking to Kevin while the skinny cop starts talking to me. The copy talking to me seemed to be trying to give me attitude, but as he was blabbering on in Spanish I really had no idea what he was trying to tell me. I just responded with my usual, “No hablo español. Hablo ingles?” He continued giving me attitude and then finally started cluing in that I didn’t what he was talking about. He finally responded with, “No hablo español?” To which I nod and point at Kevin saying, “He hablo español.” This on for a bit but he finally gets it, gives up, and joins the other cop who’s been talking with Kevin. They then wave us over behind the cop car away from the road.

The skinny cop stands guard at the back of the cop car (watching the traffic and us). The rotund cop starts talking in English. Kevin, as usual, does all the talking. While I just sit back and watch the show. The cop says we’ve broken the law and that bicycles are not allowed on the road we’re on. He insisted that a sign saying no bicycles allows was posted at the beginning of the hill. Kevin insists that we never saw any such sign and are pretty sure bicycles are allowed. I concur. The cop says no we are wrong and they have video evidence of us going by the sign. He points out that it is unsafe for us to be travelling on this road and it’s unsafe for the drivers too. (Uhhmmm… has he been reading the blog? There are plenty of other roads in Mexico on which are a whole lot more dangerous than this one and bikes are allowed on those. This road actually has pavement without potholes. That’s a pretty safe road in my books.) Anyway he then shows us a sheet which supposedly shows the fine we’ll have to pay. The fine came to 5000 pesos each or something like that (almost $1000 US). He says we’ll have to go back up the hill to the police station and pay the fine. Kevin starts getting pissed at this point and asks the cop to prove that bicycles aren’t allowed. He repeats that they have video evidence. That gets nowhere. Kevin then asks if they’ll make an exception this one time. He repeats that it is dangerous to ride a bike on this road so we’ll have to pay the fine at the station. Oh and by the way the station is closed today (Sunday) so we’ll have to pay it on Monday. He then asks for our passports which we reluctantly hand over. He checks the visas which are all good, but then he holds on to the passports. He says he’ll take them back to the station and after we pay the fine we’ll get them back. Kevin pleads to have the passports back now. The cop won’t budge. Kevin then asks can we pay the fine on the spot so we don’t have to go to the station. The cop seems to be receptive to this suggestion. He says yes that we can pay the full fine now and then we can be on our way. He still says we need to pay 10000 pesos though. Kevin tells the cop we don’t have that much. After some more back and forth the cop reduces the on-the-spot fine to 6000 pesos and gets in the car (the skinny guy is still standing guard). Kevin asks me how many pesos we have and I pull out 600 pesos. Kevin asks if 600 pesos is enough and the cop says no. We must pay 6000 pesos. This 600 vs 6000 goes on for a bit until Kevin asks if they’ll take American money. The cop says yes. Kevin then asks me to pull out all the money we have and I do (dumb me I should’ve pulled out half). Kevin counts it and then shows the cop. At this point the cop got a call on the radio (Kevin told me this later as I didn’t see this). Kevin then asks is this enough money? The cop says yes. Before handing over the money Kevin insists that we get our passports back first. After a little back and forth the cop reluctantly hands over the passports and Kevin hands over the money. Kevin then asks are we good. The cop waves us off. Kevin and I check our passports and then Kevin heads off down the road. I then follow and see the skinny cop checking to see that no cars are coming so that it’s safe for me to get back on the road. How nice of him. As I head down the road I look back to see if the cop car is following. I never see it pass us. I assume they headed back up the hill.

Okay, that’s how it all went down and I’m sure Kevin will retell the story from his perspective in his post too. Now let’s analyze what happened.

Q: If we did something wrong why didn’t the cops stop us at the top of the hill when we we’re taking a breather for five minutes just meters from their car?

A: By waiting until we’re halfway down the hill they’re putting us in a situation where we’d have to climb back up the hill to get to the police station. Not something a cyclist wants to do. Essentially they we’re trying to dissuade us from ever going to the police station as they wanted us to pay them the bribe.

Q: Why were they giving us attitude?

A: They we’re trying to make it look like it was a given that we were in the wrong. That there charge shouldn’t even be questioned. “Of course bicycles aren’t allowed.” However we never saw this supposed sign. And Kevin later confirmed by asking locals and even other cops. Cyclists are allowed to ride that road.

Q: Why say that the police station isn’t open today?

A: All the more reason to pay the bribe on the spot. We’re leaving Acapulco, it isn’t likely that we’d want to go back and have to stay another night waiting for the police station to open.

Q: Why is the skinny cop keeping guard watching the passing traffic?

A: To make sure bigger fish don’t come along and spoil the fun. These we’re lowly municipal cops. If non-corrupt cops (municipal, tourist, state, federal) came by they might stop and ask questions.

Q: Why did the cop come down in his asking price so quickly?

A: Two reasons. First they’re breaking the law and are taking a risk trying to extort us. Second they got a call and needed to go.

So what can be learned from this?

1. The cops will try to put you in a situation where you’d rather pay the bribe rather than go to the police station. It might be best to call they’re bluff and threaten to go to the police station. Either they’ll give up or you’ll have to argue with them at the police station (which might be worse, but I’ve read in the guide books that this is the recommended way).
2. Time is on your side. The cops are taking a risk so they want to get your money quickly. Just stall by asking questions and don’t budge. They’ll either give up, reduce the bribe, or get a call on the radio.

I think Kevin handled the situation very well. I was kind of surprised when he started giving the cops attitude. I wonder how I would’ve handled it if I were doing the talking. Not sure I would’ve done as good a job. On the whole I think this was just another experience Kevin and I now have under our belts. Sure we’re out $150 or so but when it comes down to it that’s not really a big deal. We’re still cycling and that’s what matters.

Now for my rant. Before leaving on this trip my biggest fear was not getting sick, getting hit by a car, the weather, terrorists or criminals. It was the cops. Everywhere I travel it is always the cops that I fear most. Why? Because they are essentially the biggest street gang in any country. And worse yet they are government sponsored. They can harass you, they can intimidate you, and they can extort you. Who can argue with them? They have the guns. In Mexico for example they carry around huge assault rifles. If you’re a regular citizen or a tourist you can’t do anything but comply with whatever they want. In first world countries at least there’s some oversight to weed out the bad apples (e.g. the internal affairs department). In poorer countries this oversight doesn’t exist and this corruption is allowed to continue. I just did a quick search online and it seems that a lot of other people had similar occurrences all around the same area we got scammed. That just goes to show that nothings being done about it. Cops will continue on being corrupt. Not all of them mind you, but enough to make me not trust the lot of them. This begs the question. What use are the cops if you can’t trust them and they’re the ones committing crime? A useless job if you ask me. Either get them to do their job properly or get rid of them. No use wasting tax dollars supporting another street gang.

California’s Debt Problem and Its Cause

If you pay attention to current events as of late you’ll know California State has a massive debt problem (just like the USA as a whole and I think I even read Oregon State has a problem too—over consumption if you ask me, but that’s a story for another day). Anyway, one way California can reduce its debt load is reduce the number of road signs it puts up. There are way too many. Let’s start with the mile marker postings. Normally, as the name suggests, a mile marker tells you how many whole miles along the highway you’ve travelled (or have yet to travel). Not in California, nope, you’ll see a mile marker for 20.00 miles on the US 101. Then what’s that right after it, oh now we’ve gone 20.05 miles on the US 101. And if that’s not enough there’s another one saying 20.15 miles on the US 101. Thanks for letting me know, but I think one post for 20 miles and another one whole mile later at 21 miles is enough. Just think, someone was paid to go out there, measure those distances and put up all those mileage markers. Does anybody care? No! Everybody has a car with an odometer (or in our case a GPS). Waste of time and money if you ask me.

Other useless signs I see a lot of are those WRONG WAY signs. I see them all over the place on the highways, big ones at every angle (just make sure you see at least one of them from every direction) on the left hand side of the road. Doesn’t everybody know how to drive? No need to tell everybody that you should be driving on the right hand side of the road and not down the left hand side of the road. Common sense if you ask me. It’s as if the California Transportation Department thinks everyone comes up to an intersection and all the rules of the road slip their mind so they need a good reminding. “Gorsh… what d’ I d’ now? D’ I go with the flow of traffic or d’ I head into oncoming traffic? Headin’ into oncoming traffic sounds like a gud idear. Wait just a dang minute that there sign says WRONG WAY. Phew… if it twern’t for that sign I’d ‘ave gorn and dun sumphin stupid.” If you find yourself thinking that then you then you need to stay off the road. The government shouldn’t be babying everyone with useless signage on your account.

If California is bent on wasting money on signage then they should look into putting up more bicycle route signs. We’re (somewhat) following the Pacific Coast bicycle route down California and half the time we don’t know where to go. Sometimes we just get dumped onto a freeway where bicycles aren’t allowed. In these cases we never saw a sign telling us that the Pacific Coast bicycle route is now headed in this direction to detour this freeway. We end up having to make up our own route and somehow manage to join up with the Pacific Coast bicycle route again (maybe 20 miles later). Other times there is signage that says turn right at the next street. So we go to that street and find it doesn’t really look like a bicycle route at all. It turns out that the bicycle route turns right several blocks ahead. Sometimes those signs really mean turn right, right now, and other times it means turn right up ahead—it’s a toss-up. All of these things happened to us today (August 1^st, 2011). For example we got dumped on a freeway (US 101) where bicycles aren’t allowed just outside of Carpinteria (10 miles past Santa Barbara). We ended up taking the Casitas Pass road to Ventura instead. That was 25 miles as opposed to 13 miles on the freeway (and I’m sure there was a bicycle route along the waterfront we could’ve taken). And as the name suggests (Casitas Pass) there were some 300 meter climbs we had to deal with before getting to Ventura (the freeway route was flat). So what we thought would be a 75 mile cruise along the beaches turned into 100 mile workout through the desert (we saw a nice lake though: Lake Casitas, and some oil pumps [never saw those before], and the desert air always smells nice).

Sorry, went off on a little rant there. I guess those are the challenges you’ve got to expect when bicycle touring. Now if only California and the USA would face up to their challenges and reduce their debts by not spending so much on frivolous/useless things.

PS: When you’re on a bicycle all day you have a lot of time to read every sign you see. One good thing I can say about all of California’s signage: it provides a lot of reading material, albeit repetitive.