Friends & Neighbors Update...

Source: LA Times

Is the real reason Mexicans are so dangerous on American roads because they are poor Campesinos newly flush with pesos and cars? This report from Hector Tobar in the LA Times makes that assertion seem, unlikely...

Traffic is so bad here, and driver behavior so out of control, that city officials are considering reinstating driving tests. Draconian fines soon will be implemented against such everyday sins as going the wrong way on a one-way street. *snip*

City traffic cops issue 6,000 citations every day. More than half are for double-parking.

People park on the sidewalks, Hernandez Garcia says, which forces pedestrians to walk in traffic. Even though the city's notoriously slow traffic mitigates the danger, on average 1,500 drivers and pedestrians are killed in accidents in Mexico City each year, a rate significantly higher than that in Los Angeles County.

Once, driving tests were required, but they were scrapped because so many people paid bribes to get their licenses. Now the city is drawing up proposals to reinstate the tests. In the meantime, the city has launched a program to educate schoolchildren about traffic laws, Hernandez Garcia says. *snip*

"We don't intend to make our city like Houston, Dallas or Los Angeles, a city filled with freeways," Martinez says. Mexico City will never tear down entire neighborhoods, as Los Angeles did decades ago. "We're carrying this cultural burden of our past, which is still present," Martinez says. *snip*

"The city grew in a contradictory manner, and people built things just thinking of the needs of the moment," Martinez says. "They thought Avenida Insurgentes would be able to handle all the traffic coming in from the north."

It's like a primer of all Mexico's problems in one news story.

So what do we learn from this story...Not enforcing the law leads to lawlessness, the corruption is so bad that they simply gave up on enforcing any standards, and a cultural inflexibility keeps them from making structural changes that are required, and of course there is a shortsightedness inherent in the culture that mitigates against making meaningful changes even if the "cultural" issues were dealt with.

Hmmm, who would have ever thought we could determine someone's respect for the rule of law by simply taking a gander at their country of origin? Gosh, it's like a mystery or something! Though I'm quite certain it would be racist to note what this gentleman who lives in Mexico is reporting, after all, if facts aren't racist, what is?

H/T Vdare

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