Bribes and Fines

While we’re on the subject of bribes and fines, the general sentiment is that it’s totally normal to bribe a cop a mere 50 pesos ($4, and what I estimate to be less than 10% of the cost of a ticket) for a minor infraction.  After spending a year of my life in big-government Berkeley, where you need a permit to park in front of your house, and after hearing year after year how California beaurocracy pisses away our tax dollars on god knows what, this Mexicanized form of “government control” feels refreshing.  Instead of sending 500 pesos to the Mexican government and letting them inefficiently recycle it into 50 pesos on a police officer’s paycheck, here you can cut out the middle man completely and therefore choose to infuse the economy with your remaining 450 pesos as you see fit.  

However, it is a little unclear who exactly the law applies to.  Right from the start, Brenda’s dad told me that if I ever get in trouble with the cops I should take the ticket, which supposedly, because I’m from out of state, is as good as a piece of garbage.  Apparently, tickets need to be sent to the state where the vehicle is registered and is therefore totally pointless for out-of-staters, even those from other Mexican states.  Something like that.  He said they’ll take their sweet time and may even threaten to tow me, which is illegal (the towing, not the threatening), yearning for that precious $4 bribe.  

Well, the cops pulled me over the other morning as I zipped from my house to Brenda’s.  She lives on the first block of a little one-way residential street, so for logistical reasons pretty much everyone goes the wrong direction (her father, her sister, and now myself are the only ones who, when leaving, reverse down the block instead of turning around, essentially going the right direction but facing the wrong way).  They got her sister once for going the wrong way as well; apparently she cried and told them she only did it because she was experiencing an overpowering bowel emergency.  

It was exactly how her dad had said it would happen.  I pretended to be utterly confounded by the slow Spanish sentences they presented me with; once they said the word “ticket” I just kept saying “Está bien.  Give me the ticket.”  They took my license and my driving permit and spent about 5 minutes filling out the ticket, then told me not to go the wrong way down a one-way street and left, taking the theater prop ticket with them.  Apparently the same goes for metered parking.  They say foreigners are immune.  I have yet to put a peso into a machine and also have yet to get ticketed. 

 
A second driving-related rite of passage occurred: the fender bender.  Legally it was my fault because I was in back, but both parties agreed that it was just downright unfortunate and caused by the guy in front of us who, while we were entering the freeway, suddenly rode up onto the curb and came to a complete stop.  I rear-ended an SUV at an under 10 MPH skid, causing the most minor of damage to their bumper and leaving my car appearing completely fucked and leaking water.  Thanks to Mexican resourcefulness and cheap labor rates, $100 fixed both vehicles in under 24 hours.  Numbers were exchanged and Brenda and I may go out for beers with the girls I hit.