One thing most tourists don't realize about coming to Mexico is that as a general rule the police will never stop you unless you are in the middle of some sort of a grevious offense, such as murdering someone. And something else that most people aren't aware of when they are just traveling to Mexico is the simple fact that the police cannot arrest you or give you a ticket unless they actually catch you in the middle of doing something illegal. This is something that expats in Mexico can use to their advantage, because there are a lot of things that the tourist police will try to get American tourists to pay for which are completely unregulated and laughable in terms of all-out scams.
The perfect example of this is the speed trap. These are set up in various sections of the city, and the way they work is that the police will randomly pull cars over and tell the drivers that they broke some sort of rule and are therefore being pulled over. However, instead of writing you a ticket what they will do is tell you that they want to hold on to your license until you go to the court, pay a fine and then come back to them with the receipt. What they are betting on is that you don't want to deal with the hassle of going through all of that while you are on vacation, so rather than deal with the ticket you will simply pay them a small bribe in the form of $10 or so to let you off the hook.
But what anyone living in Mexico will tell you is that this is completely illegal for the police to do. What they are doing is capitalizing on the fact that they know most Americans are terrified of the police in their home country and will do anything that a law official tells them to do. All they are really looking for is a quick bribe and you can be on your way without any hassles.
For more information on living in Mexico and other countries as a digital nomad, you can visit http://www.theexpatguidebook.com/, where T.W. Anderson and others talk about the realities of living as an expat day in and day out. You can also click on the link in the upper sidebar.
The perfect example of this is the speed trap. These are set up in various sections of the city, and the way they work is that the police will randomly pull cars over and tell the drivers that they broke some sort of rule and are therefore being pulled over. However, instead of writing you a ticket what they will do is tell you that they want to hold on to your license until you go to the court, pay a fine and then come back to them with the receipt. What they are betting on is that you don't want to deal with the hassle of going through all of that while you are on vacation, so rather than deal with the ticket you will simply pay them a small bribe in the form of $10 or so to let you off the hook.
But what anyone living in Mexico will tell you is that this is completely illegal for the police to do. What they are doing is capitalizing on the fact that they know most Americans are terrified of the police in their home country and will do anything that a law official tells them to do. All they are really looking for is a quick bribe and you can be on your way without any hassles.
For more information on living in Mexico and other countries as a digital nomad, you can visit http://www.theexpatguidebook.com/, where T.W. Anderson and others talk about the realities of living as an expat day in and day out. You can also click on the link in the upper sidebar.
No comments:
Post a Comment