Gettin’ pinched by the Man (or how I stopped worrying and started loving The Mexican Mordida System):
When staying in Mexico for an extended period of time, there is a good chance that at some point or another you will be pulled over by “El Transito” (the traffice cops), sometimes for imaginary infractions other times for legitimate errors (unintentional or not). The customary way to handle such situations is to plead ignorance and language barrier as the police officer tells you in half spanish and half broken english what your infraction is and how he will need to take your license card and you will have to come in to pay the ticket. As the conversation winds on (and on and on), you’ll begin to understand that if you give the police officer a sum of money (that you are usually left to figure out how much is appropriate) that he can forget about the infraction and let you on your way, as long as you don’t tell any of your gringo friends, because the police can’t have it known that they accept bribes. We call this The Mordida System, “mordida” loosely meaning “bribe”. It is always a good practice to carry an extra 200 pesos bill (20 bucks) in your wallet, in case of such occurrences. This amount is usually sufficient for the mordida. This will happen to you, sooner or later.
Americans with resident visas, what’s called an “FM3,” can bring a car into the country under an automobile visa, usually lasting 2 years or so. But when the visa expires, the person must bring the car back to the border and re-register the car with a new visa (ridiculous, I know). I recently bought a ‘96 Nissan Pathfinder from some friends of ours down here. We are now in the process of transferring the title into my name, in the states. It is still up in the air, whether I will need to drive the car back to the border to re-register it for another visa. As long as the car is over a certain number of years (eight I believe) you can buy a used american car in Mexico and not have to have it registered under a visa. At the moment, I do not have an FM3, I am here on a tourist visa and the car is registered under my friend’s names. I am in process of getting my FM3, so that I can legally live and work in Mexico.
Last night, I was driving home from my good friend Miguel’s house at around 1:00am. I noticed in my rear view mirror a “transito” pick-up trick, following me through 3 turns. On the fourth turn, a left hand turn, the red and blue lights went on and I knew I was doomed from the first time I saw the truck. The police officer, a mild mannered guy probably around 25 or 26, walked up to my window and offered his hand for a handshake. He asked me if I knew spanish and I replied yes (mas o menos - more or less). He politely asked me for my license and registration. I complied. He began to explain to me that he had pulled me over because I had made a left hand turn at the previous light, which is a two way street and apparently in Mexico you can’t make a left hand turn on a two way street. Now I have to plead ignorance at this point, I really am not sure if he was bullshitting me or not (so I am looking into it - survey says: yes, I was wrong), but I assume that he was telling me the truth at this point, so his reason for pulling me over was legitimate. I had unintentionally broken a traffic law. My problem was further compounded by the fact that the car that I was driving not only had an expired visa but that the visa specifically states that people without an “FM3″ may not operate the vehicle (i.e. me). He told me that usually he could forget about the traffic violation since it was pretty clear that I had no idea what I had done wrong, but that the visa and my lack of FM3 issues weremuch bigger. He then explained to me that he would need to impound the car and my license and that I could come pick both up tomorrow at the impound, after I pay the $150 impound fine, that I would also need to pay another fine for having a lapsed automobile visa and then I would need to go directly to the border to re-register the vehicle.
I was still trying to understand what this would mean.
I explained to the guy that the car was not mine (not technically) and that the owners had recently passed away (true, regrettably) and that their children who now owned the vehicle were in Colorado getting the car transferred into my name (true). So in effect, there was no way the owner could come with me to get the vehicle out of the impound. He then said that that car would have to stay in the impound until the owners could come and claim it. I was pulling my hair out, thinking of all the crap I’d have to go through to get the car out of the lock-up.
At seeing me distraught, the cop politely asked me to get out of the car and follow him to his truck. In front of his truck, he further explained my situation and I got more worried. At this point I started to hint that if there was anyway we could take care of it now I would be most appreciative. He explained to me that he didn’t want to go through the hassle of impounding the car and that I seemed like a good guy, but that he couldn’t take any money from me, because he’s an honest cop and he’s young and likes his job and too many gringos talk. I assured him that if we could take care of it here and now, that I would forget all about him and not say a thing to anyone. He then said, alright, and what was it worth to me and then he ran down the list of infractions, fines and the process I would have to go through to get the car released, all the while being very nice and polite. he was honestly trying to help me out.
At this point, I had no idea that I was being pinched. I thought about my wallet in my pocket. how much did I have there? 100 pesos maybe? I told the officer that I had maybe 100 pesos. He didn’t seem to like that, so I said that I could go to an ATM machine, if he knew where one was nearby. He then asked well how much could I give him. I thought about it for a second and blurted, “well, how bout 100 dollars?” He perked up immediately and gave me directions on how to get there and that he would follow behind me. We got in our cars, went to the ATM machine and I gave the officer his money. He smiled, thanked me, and said that if I obey the traffic laws, I wouldn’t get pulled over again, but that I should get the car situation take care of. and then he was on his way.
and I thought to myself, I just got pinched by The Man!
As I drove home the 20 minutes to Bucerias, I thought about the transaction and how it had unfolded in exactly the same way that people had said it would happen. and that I probably could have gotten off the hook by giving the guy the 200 peso note that ended up being in my wallet. Then I recalled a book I had read called Shock Culture: Mexico! In the book, the author explains The Mordida System and it’s unexpected benefits. You see, The Mordida System serves a really interesting purpose: to expedite small things like this, to keep them from bogging up the legal system and to keep the cops paid decently. Sure, there are people who abuse the system. Yes, I think it sucks that I got pinched for a hundred bucks, that’s a boat load of money, especially down here. But in the end, he didn’t pinch me for the hell of it or just because he could. He actually did me a service by not impounding my car and making me toe the legal line. He saved him and his boss from having to do all the paper work and he got paid very nicely, in mexico the cops get paid like crap. So even though I’m short a hundred bucks, I think I escaped relatively unscathed.
Well, I guess I have to chalk this one up to being well on the road to becoming an ex-patriot.
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