
You always hear stories about problems with Mexican police, but when I moved down to Mexico, they were just rumors as far as I was aware. An incident a few months ago, however, changed my mind on that score.
First of all, it is important to note that there are three levels of police in Mexico. First, there are the Federales, or the federal police force. They would be analogous to the RCMP in Canada. They are responsible for interstate crime and highway patrol, but have no jurisdiction within large municipalities that have their own policing.
Mexican police near Plaza de Armas in downtown Queretaro.
Next are the state police, with jurisdiction within each Mexican state. Canada really doesn’t have an equivalent level of policing that I am aware of. The RCMP seems to have jurisdiction for everything in the country, apart from certain large cities that have their own police force.
Finally, you have the municipal police, who govern each municipality. They would be similar in function to the city police of Calgary or Toronto.
If there is a reliable police force in Mexico, it would be the Federal police. Most people in Mexico seem to acknowledge that they are generally honest and safe to interact with. I frequently see them pulling over cars on the federal highways, but I’ve never been stopped by them myself, so I really can’t comment. I do know that I’ve seen vehicles blast past a parked Federales car doing twice the speed limit with the police doing nothing to stop them. On the other hand, I have also witnessed Federales setting up radar traps on certain highways and pulling over lines of cars for speeding.
The local, or municipal police, are a different matter completely, as I discovered a few months ago. I got pulled over in a traffic stop by a municipal police truck right at a point where I was slowing for one of the notorious speed bumps (topes). Right from the start, it was pretty clear that the officer was interested in something other than law enforcement.
City workers planting new flowers in Plaza de Armas, downtown Queretaro.
I pulled over the car and waited for the officer to approach my opened window. Friends had told me that one way to tell if the process is a shakedown is how friendly it all starts out. This certainly fit the description. The officer came to my window with his hand extended for a friendly shake as his opening move.
In the past, it has seemed the best course to feign complete ignorance of Spanish, rather than get into the discussion. My Spanish has definitely improved over the past year. It isn’t to the point where I am conversational, but at very least I can pick up the gist of what is being said most of the time. And now was the perfect time to put my skills to the test in a real life situation.
The officer, having extended a friendly greeting, proceeded to tell me that there was a problem. “Oh sir”, he started. “There is a problem. You were moving at 60 km in a 50 km zone! What are we going to do? How can we fix this?” The irony of having speeding used as a reason for the traffic stop was priceless. Not only had we been slowing down for the upcoming speed bump, but other vehicles were passing me like I was standing still at the time of the traffic stop. Speeding in Mexico, while technically governed by a traffic code similar to Canada, is in fact not enforced. Typically, cars travel at whatever speed the road allows. This is why Mexico puts speed bumps everywhere – including in the middle of highways.
As I reflected on the magnitude of the situation, the officer was getting a bit more pointed in what he was looking for. “Sir, I will have to write you a ticket. Is that what you want? Do you want a ticket? How can we fix this?” The officer brandished his ticket book and pantomimed writing movements.
In a combination of English and really terrible Spanish I asked him, “You want me to escribir (the verb to write, but improperly conjugated) something there?” The man looked confused. I then decided to pile on a few more Spanish words, just to get the point across that he wasn’t going to get anywhere. Gesturing up the road, I asked him in all sincerity, “Gato pantalones?” (Cat pants?) This linguistic non-starter made it clear to the officer that the whole process was going to be a colossal waste of time, and that he’d be better off shaking down a Spanish-speaking driver who at least understood how this game was played. He walked back to his truck and his partner climbed out to see if he could extract some money from me.
The second officer went through much the same routine as the first. The friendly handshake. The threat of a traffic ticket. The suggestion that a creative monetary solution would allow us to forego the current unpleasant situation. The puzzling and meaningless English/Spanish responses from me. The second officer gave up even more quickly than the first, and waving me onward curtly barked, “adelante” (go ahead). We waited until the police truck drove off, then carried on our way.
Friends have since told us that this kind of shakedown for money most typically occurs in the early afternoon – right before lunch break. The municipal police are paid so poorly that they often resort to shakedowns like this just to get money for lunch. It is a sorry way to run a police department, but I think that many municipalities are trying to change this to improve service.
Downtown parkades are often located inside of historical buildings. Glass blocks in roof allow natural light.
Incidentally, neither officer wrote out a traffic violation ticket. Writing tickets means that there is an official record that would need to be supported by evidence. Having none, and not being interested in the hassle of having to write a ticket, they were clearly just using this as leverage to see if they could get a payment to make the situation go away.
Regardless of if or when the problem of police corruption and bribery is addressed in Mexico, I’ve come to call my avoidance technique the “cat pants’ maneuver. Having a foreign licence plate probably causes us to be targeted more too. If the police were enforcing an actual violation, I’m sure this whole process would have gone differently. This situation is one of the things that makes driving in Mexico somewhat stressful.
In Canada, when you buy a new product that comes with a warranty, there is always the option of just returning the item for a full refund. Canadian consumer protection laws exist for a reason – bad products shouldn’t be allowed to create a ‘buyer beware’ situation. In Mexico, things don’t quite work this way.
Firstly, the concept of returning ANYTHING is a fairly new notion in Mexico. In the past, if pesos left your pocket to buy something, they were never coming back to you. Period. Ever. Even if the product was complete rubbish, a store owner would never offer any kind of refund. The concept seemed to be that if you were gullible enough to buy a bad product, then maybe you should have to live with that decision. Most people in Mexico seem to accept this as a normal situation and nothing to get too upset about.
We found that there are ways around this, if you have the time and patience and you are dealing with a reputable store.
Twice now we’ve been disappointed with washing machines. First we had a terrible Whirlpool top loader that couldn’t clean anything. Not only would the machine not clean clothes, but it had no lint trap. After wearing clothes down at an alarming rate, the resulting fuzz was deposited evenly across all the garments in the wash. This resulted in some interesting and unexpected consequences. The failure of my electric razor, for example.
A bad washing machine causing a razor to fail may seem like a leap, but it is the absolute truth! Our bath towels were subjected to the same lint-clinging effect as the rest of the washing. When I would towel off after my shower, my beard had a habit of collecting all the fuzz. I’d finish up a shower looking like I had wool all over my face. Even after getting the majority of this cotton lint off my face, my razor would still manage to pick up a lot of fibers I couldn’t see. These wound themselves around the axle of each of the three rotary heads of the razor, causing the action to slow and the motor to overheat. I was puzzled about what was happening until I opened up the heads and started picking long cotton threads off the spin axles.
So we decided to spend a bit more and try a different brand of machine. Enter the Samsung beast. The new laundry pair was a top loading washer and a gas dryer. They had more features (including a lint trap) and were definitely more spendy. Surely these would be better? Wrong.
Right from the start, it was clear that the Samsung washer wasn’t well suited for its primary task. For one thing, it couldn’t seem to get clothes wet. This was unfortunate, since getting dirty clothes wet is an important first step in cleaning them. Consistently, clothes in the machine would have mysterious dry areas when they were pulled out after the final spin cycle.
UNESCO Plaque declares the downtown of Queretaro a heritage site.
We contacted Samsung about the problem, which over the next five months resulted in a parade of different technicians who replaced parts, ran tests and wrote reports. At the end of it all, the machine still could not get clothes wet, let alone clean.
We finally put our foot down when Samsung customer support began asking us to do the same steps all over again. It seemed clear that they were just