QCOSTARICA – The Ministry of Transport don’t want us to speed. They also don’t want us to alert drivers who do, of police ahead.
In a post on the social media, the Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Transportes (MOPT) is making a call to “eradicate the culture so rooted in Costa Rican to warn other drivers that later there are controls and presence of the Traffic Police (Policia de Transito)”.
The message is that telling an offender, a speeding driver, for example, of police ahead allows this person to evade the control and later potentially cause a tragedy, such as running over an innocent, hitting another vehicle or that same driver who abuses the speed limit getting killed.
The warning, typically by flashing headlights to oncoming vehicles, avoids the Policia de Transito from taking off the road a drowsy driver, one under the influence of alcohol or drugs, drivers not wearing seatbelts or talking on a cellular phone, or driving with an overloaded or crowded vehicle, among many other (stupid) things drivers do on the roads.
“Remember, that notifying an offending driver to a police presence could cause a tragedy in your own family,” says the message.
The message comes at a time when carnage on the roads in Costa Rica is at an all-time high, especially involving motorcyclists.
In the past couple of weeks, moreso than in past months, each morning television news has led off with multiple videos of fatal car crashes, mostly involving speeding and careless driving.
Source: Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes
The normal reaction of most drivers when they receive the headlight warning of police being ahead, is to slow down to the speed limit, or even below the limit, which, I believe, is the object of the exercise. Maybe what the Transit Police are really concerned about is not having an opportunity to receive a bribe (“una morda”) from the motorist.
The government use of traffic cameras would be a big help in saving lives. Oh…wait, the government needs to first establish a legitimate mailing address for every residence so that traffic tickets can be delivered to violators. Sorry, I got ahead of myself.