Little Bike Cop

Mainecoons:

Why are you not revealing the whole story of your experiences back in June? I will grant you that you may have been ripped off by a set of cops but the fact of the matter is that you hadn't done your research on going this route. Anyone headed for Texas would know better than be looking for signs for Zapopan and Tepic from your description on TOB - your words not mine!

[quote="Jim W"]I was pulled over by the same cop, I was leaving Fransicos mechanico....He insisted I was going the wrong way out of his business...LMAO....after 6 years here...Mordida...get a life....I said give me ticket....he made threats, taking my vehicle, I said here are the keys....LMAOF, I refused to give him my license...but held it up for his review. He said he would confiscate my vehicle....again LMAO....He gave up and left. [/quote]

You and I can laugh JW, but this disgusting freak is victimizing inexperienced people who don´t know better every day. This blood sucking parasite must be stopped. Thanks to Simpsca´s warning, I now know this two bit worm is issuing false tickets and when I go to pay my registration fees this year, if there are any phony tickets as there were last year, I´ll take his sorry ass to the cleaners.

hound dog wrote:[quote="Jim W"]I was pulled over by the same cop, I was leaving Fransicos mechanico....He insisted I was going the wrong way out of his business...LMAO....after 6 years here...Mordida...get a life....I said give me ticket....he made threats, taking my vehicle, I said here are the keys....LMAOF, I refused to give him my license...but held it up for his review. He said he would confiscate my vehicle....again LMAO....He gave up and left.

You and I can laugh JW, but this disgusting freak is victimizing inexperienced people who don´t know better every day. This blood sucking parasite must be stopped. Thanks to Simpsca´s warning, I now know this two bit worm is issuing false tickets and when I go to pay my registration fees this year, if there are any phony tickets as there were last year, I´ll take his sorry ass to the cleaners. [/quote]







Love Ya dog....fact is no BRIBES....most gringos....pay.... Elstupido....spent nearly an hour....no ticket

johninajijic wrote:Maybe if they paid Police a decent salary, they wouldn't be thieves! Or are some of them just dishonest people with no morals.

Snork.... Really?? Maybe... If they paid thieves better.... there wouldn't be any thieves.... then.... we wouldn't need cops!!....

think of all the money that would save....

genius... ... dude..... U should run for Public Office...

CheenaGringo wrote:Mainecoons:

Why are you not revealing the whole story of your experiences back in June? I will grant you that you may have been ripped off by a set of cops but the fact of the matter is that you hadn't done your research on going this route. Anyone headed for Texas would know better than be looking for signs for Zapopan and Tepic from your description on TOB - your words not mine!

Spot on Neil

We were following directions give to us by others. We did not get sidetracked until after the stop. That happened because the directions were were gave were from before the last part with the final interchange with Ruta 80 was built. Our directions told us to drive to the end and then turn right to Zapotlanejo. In fact, with the last section complete, when we went to the end, turning right put us going on the wrong direction. That is how it happened.

Far as I can tell, the other victims did not get sidetracked on this route.

We took the route again in October but not before driving it first with new directions to make sure that we had it right. We didn't try to use it on the return trip in June because we knew at that point that we didn't have good directions.

You are trying to distract from what has happened here to a number of us, of which you have no personal experience, and you are blaming of the victims of these criminal cops. And Lerher, that applies to you too. Being given a trumped up ticket in Louisiana is not the same as being forced from your vehicle and having your pocket picked by an armed cop. That is a foolish and ignorant comparison.

And, Neil, the road IS signed (on the return) to Tepic and on the way out to Zapotlanejo. There are no signs on it indicating that it is joining Ruta 80 and no signs on it until you get to the very end that it will take you to Lagos de Moreno. Coming back, there are no signs on it that indicate it will take you to either GDL or the airport. Perhaps you need to do your homework about it as well since it appears you don't know how the road is signed.

Still waiting for you and Marty to tell us what defines a natural target and how all of us invited armed robbery by driving down the road. I drove in the U.S. without getting a single ticket as well. And I don't drive like a bat out of hell. I'll be glad to pass your wisdom along to all the other victims so that we'll all be safer and wiser from here on out.

neil has not been stopped by traffic police. fed police etc. possibly it is luck, or he knows what is doing. i can see by his posts, he is very careful in mexico. some people have never been robbed, mugged, bothered. (i am one of those). people who drive along that road are responsible for the outcome. if they know the reality, then it is @their own risk. americans will continue driving along this route, as well as giving keys to strangers. it is an adventure, enjoy. you can write about it, now you are important. you can brag about how you stood up to the mexican, you will "take him to the cleaners". right. then cry victim & get attention. next have a fund raiser to pay the police off, so they wont rob you.

Some web boards have an "ignore" function. Wish this one did.

Gringal, under your profile, click the Friends & Foes tab, you will see what to do.

I'm still waiting to learn what being careful is. What expression should you have on your face when the cop follows you onto a deserted road and pulls you over for the shakedown? Is it better to drive like a madman than it is to drive along with the rest of the traffic? If an older, very common and cheap car doesn't help you avoid cop robbery, what does? Should we all drive Mercedes?

As I said, if someone with actual experience with this kind of shakedown wants to share a set of rules for avoiding it, I am all ears and I will send that wisdom along to the other victims, two of whom I know and the others are friends of our close friends. What exactly is being careful in Mexico?

We only drive in daylight, should we start driving at night? Trade in the cheap car? Drive a lot slower than the other drivers or a lot faster? Paint happy faces on the backs of our heads?

I'm glad you haven't been hit there, Susan. A very experienced Mexico hand who is a friend of mine who is driving down from Texas next week has decided to avoid that bypass on his return trip after seeing the reports and emails about the rash of cop robberies there. We are getting in touch with all the victims and will work through Lakeside Crime to try and get some Federales out there to catch these crooks.

Mainecoons wrote:I'm still waiting to learn what being careful is. What expression should you have on your face when the cop follows you onto a deserted road and pulls you over for the shakedown? Is it better to drive like a madman than it is to drive along with the rest of the traffic? If an older, very common and cheap car doesn't help you avoid cop robbery, what does? Should we all drive Mercedes?

As I said, if someone with actual experience with this kind of shakedown wants to share a set of rules for avoiding it, I am all ears and I will send that wisdom along to the other victims, two of whom I know and the others are friends of our close friends. What exactly is being careful in Mexico?

We only drive in daylight, should we start driving at night? Trade in the cheap car? Drive a lot slower than the other drivers or a lot faster? Paint happy faces on the backs of our heads?

I'm glad you haven't been hit there, Susan. A very experienced Mexico hand who is a friend of mine who is driving down from Texas next week has decided to avoid that bypass on his return trip after seeing the reports and emails about the rash of cop robberies there. We are getting in touch with all the victims and will work through Lakeside Crime to try and get some Federales out there to catch these crooks.

I would sugest that you go up to your bedroom, get into bed, pull all the covers over your head, and hunker down. I know hat with your inflated head it might intail a lot of covers, but what the hell. And I further sugest that stay away from all 4 lane deserted highways in the future. Just sayintg

I know I am a little slow however I don't understand how someone "deserves to be shaken down by the cops" because they took the wrong turn or followed the wrong directions. Can someone explain that concept to me because I have driven around the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Colima and Micheocon more than 3/4's of the people that currently live at the lake. I have taken many wrong turns in my travels but have been very fortunate not to have had any problems and I want to make sure I avoid any......

It is all about luck of the draw...

CanuckBob wrote:Gringal, under your profile, click the Friends & Foes tab, you will see what to do.

Thank you. I should have known. Hesheit has been Flushed. Aaaah.

espíritu del lago wrote:It is all about luck of the draw...

No some of the members above have eluded that Maines deserved to be robbed by the cops yet it appears that his only infraction was taking a wrong turn so I would like to get further clarification or an explanation on that.

Mainecoons:

By distracting me to try and answer your questions, you are taking my valuable time away from two very key writing projects: Gringo Guide to Changing Your Luck in Mexico and Gringo Guide to Avoid Being Shaken Down by Crooked Cops . These two informative books will be 33 pages each and available in ebook format for $133.33 each.

As my cousin's husband, a New York State Patrolman, once told me: any trained police officer can follow any driver for 10 minutes or less and find a reason to pull them over!

Mainecoons wrote:And Lerher [sic], that applies to you too. Being given a trumped up ticket in Louisiana is not the same as being forced from your vehicle and having your pocket picked by an armed cop. That is a foolish and ignorant comparison.

Do you always invent scenarios from your own fantasy to launch your nonsensical argumentation?

Nowhere have I said (nor suggested) that I was "given a trumped up ticket in Louisiana." Maybe you need to re-read my post(s).

My reference was to a "20/20" segment that I saw wherein a person was driving through Louisiana on her way home (Denver?) and had her Cadillac illegally confiscated by the Louisiana State Police, the point being that when you give thugs a badge and a gun they will victimize whomever the feel like victimizing. That goes for the thugs Stateside as well as in Mexico.

It's a simple fact and easy to comprehend.

While Dawg has not experienced Mainecoons´problem with crooked armed bandit cops around Metropoiltan Guadalajara, I do not understand why he is being trashed for reporting an incident which should be broadcast among others similarly vulnerable to police corruption while in the public realm. All this sniping puzzles me, frankly but we old farts are cantankerous by nature so I´ve become used to it.

In Mainecoons´ defense, this nonsense of our pretending that we geezers project a sophisticated and wordly image and are, therefore, less vulnerable to attack is fatuous reasoning. Old farts will always be more vulnerable than the young and vigorous to notions of thieves that they are weak and vulnerable.

Back before the Arco Norte to Puebla was opened, we used to have to drive from Lake Chapala to Chiapas right through the heart of Mexico City entering on the Toluca/DF Autopista at Santa Fe and exiting through the vast slums of Chalco/Ixtapaluca onto the Puebla Autopista. Driving through the heart of Mexico City was always an adventure and subject to all sorts of uncertainties not the least of which was the possibiliy that we might be noticed by some of Mexico City´s notoriously crooked and dangerous cops. The best way to survive the event was to get in the middle lanes of the various expressways we were required to traverse and try to become invisible. This became les of a problem after we bought a Mexico plated vehicle but when we had that big old Chrysler with the Caifornia plates, driving thoruh that megalopolis was akin to chumming for sharks.

On one of our first trips several years ago when we still had that California plated car, we were pulled over near the airport by two of the nastiest looking thug cops we had ever laid eyes on. They were obviously attempting to intimidate us and were wearing guns so we took them very seriously.

The following conversation ensued:

COP: "You are driving on a day you are not allowed to drive with that license plate. We are going to impound your car and that will cost you $6,000 Pesos."
WIFE: "Nonsense, today is a national holiday so all are allowed to drive on this day."
COP: "Well, OK, you´re correct but you changed lanes back there without giving a sgnal and that will cost you $600 Pesos and we will have to take your driver´s license which you can pick up at the precinct station after you pay the fine."
WIFE: " So, give us a ticket and take us to your precinct station and we´ll pay the fine ."
COP; "Well, it´s a national holiday and the station is closed so just pay us the $600 Pesos and you can be on your way."
WIFE: "Bullshit. No way we are goung to pay you $600 Pesos."
COP: "Well OK, then, $400 Pesos."
WIFE: "Are you out of your mind? $400 Pesos for changing lanes without a signal l which isn´t even true in the first place?"
COP: "Well, how much will you give me?"
WIFE: " It happens that we are lost and seeking the autopista to Queretaro and were looking for a taxi to pay $300 Pesos to to lead us to the autopista so, we will pay you guys $300 Pesos to let us follow you to the entrance to the autopista to Queretaro."
COP: "That´s a deal. Follow us."

So, off we went with red lights flashing and motorists getting the hell out of our way in obvious collective panic until they pointed out the entrance to the Queretaro autopista. In those days, a dollar was only worth about $9 Pesos but that was one of the best investments we ever made and we were in Queretaro before dark .

Couple of crooked cop stories from the past.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that some cops are crooked, no matter where they are or what they get paid.

The first story was a guy I knew quite well in England, and goes back about 45 years. He decided to join the police force, and not too long after was charged with planting evidence at the scene of a crime. End of career, despite his protests that the cops did it all the time.

The second story was much more recent. Friends of ours were returning home after spending the winter here and were stopped by a cop on a lonely stretch of road in Northern Mexico. Something about this guy struck them as odd. He looked a bit scruffy, credentials a bit off, at least to them. So, after assessing the situation just put their car back in gear and said adios amigo. He did not follow them.

I don't know if this would work, but how about negotiating with the guys and saying I'm not comfortable here in the middle of nowhere and would prefer that you follow us to a gas station, or other more populated area? We've really only had pretty good experiences with cops here. Just one bad experience with a couple of transitos in Acapulco, and yes we did pay the mordida, because it's a pretty tough city to negotiate by car. By the way, these guys were pretty nervous about being seen accepting a mordida FWIW. So, an alternative course of action might be to flash the cash out in the open making it obvious to passers by that you were being shaken down.

To my knowledge just about everywhere traffic cops are given quotas, that includes Canada and the U.S.

In Canada there's even a business where retired cops, for a fee, get you off the charges. Now that kind of sounds like a mordida to me. How do I know this, well let's just say I had to use their services a couple of times after racking up some points on my drivers license. The objective being to keep the number of points against you under control. The name of the organization was, POINTTS.

Here's a link:

http://www.pointts.com/

bob, i did not say "blame the victim". but IF someone knows all this information (forums etc), AND insists driving on those roads, they are partly responsible. it is the same as leaving my doors wide open, knowing the possible outcome. from reading these posts, these roads are high risk. americans are reacting by spinning round & round trying to figure it out. "old car new car fast car slow car". "get MORE police, to catch the other police". (brilliant). there is no pattern, they stop who ever they stop. (they may pass up an armed car, w/ 5 mexican men). why even drive there? or why do it often? it is a matter of "odds". i am low risk, i never drove a car. that already puts me a the zero target group. i do not give keys to anyone, have workers milling around, talk to strangers. as for the "road problem", it seems as if there are no precautions @all expect do not drive there! that may be too simple?

I just want to make it clear that I haven't "trashed" Mainecoons, but merely called attention to the fact that one can find crooked cops wherever one goes; and I specified Louisiana and Texas because I know of situations in those places.

I just think it's reprehensible to single out Mexico and point the finger at "bad guy" cops here, as if it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.

Calling attention to this particular stretch of highway in Mexico is a good thing. It would be comparable to my pointing out that drivers should exercise extreme caution when traveling Interstate Highway 20 through Texas and Louisiana.

raqueteer wrote:Couple of crooked cop stories from the past.
In Canada there's even a business where retired cops, for a fee, get you off the charges. Now that kind of sounds like a mordida to me. How do I know this, well let's just say I had to use their services a couple of times after racking up some points on my drivers license. The objective being to keep the number of points against you under control. The name of the organization was, POINTTS.

Here's a link:

http://www.pointts.com/

Give Dawg mordida any day over the "point" system. They have our family members in France so scared of points accumulation or, God forbid, being caught driving while (even slightly) intoxicated (and, this is, after all, France), that everyone lives in total fear of the dreaded huge fines, license suspensions and endless traffic school torture always lurking in the background when one enters the driver´s seat.

Dawg prefers the Mexican system, especially down south where everyone is crooked and just about any traffic violation not involving injury is negotiable. Sort of reminds me of the South Alabama system when Dawg was a kid in the 1950s

OFFICER BILLY BOB: "Yáll boys been adrankin´?".
US: "Nawsuh officer"
OBB: "Then how come theys 47 empty Country Club Malt Liquor cans in the back seat and do yállses daddies and mamas know yáll are out here weavin´´ up and down Pigeon Creek Road at midnight pushin´ 100 miles per hour? "
US: Nawsuh,"
OBB: Well, yáll git on home now y´heah and Ah betteh not see yáll out heah again tonight, is that cleah?"
US: "Yassuh."

So, of course, we drove home after that when we should have never have been allowed to remain behind the wheel - God knows how we got there - and stayed away from Pigeon Creek road for a week or so. Thank God there was also Halso´s Mill Road out toward the Crenshaw County line.

Yes indeed Dawg, that points system is truly a thing to be loathed and feared.

Now when I was young up there in the frozen north, I had a tendency to speed. In fact one time I clocked 120 mph on my grandmothers cadillac. Now back in those days. Raq could just bat her eyes at the nice officer and weep pitifully, claiming "my Daddy ¡s going to kill me if he finds out", a few more tears and a kleenex, and it was all sorted out. As for drinking, well that was a problem for my boyfriends, I was completely innocent not being actually behind the wheel.

Getting old and wrinkled just sucks!!!

raqueteer wrote:Yes indeed Dawg, that points system is truly a thing to be loathed and feared.

Now when I was young up there in the frozen north, I had a tendency to speed. In fact one time I clocked 120 mph on my grandmothers cadillac. Now back in those days. Raq could just bat her eyes at the nice officer and weep pitifully, claiming "my Daddy ¡s going to kill me if he finds out", a few more tears and a kleenex, and it was all sorted out. As for drinking, well that was a problem for my boyfriends, I was completely innocent not being actually behind the wheel.

Getting old and wrinkled just sucks!!!

Darlin´wife. then just a bride, moves with Dawg from Mobile to San Francisco and was on business assignment to Orange County on the southern California coast but at that time was relatively naive about driving in Southern California so this highway patrol officer pulls her over on the freeway around Anaheim for speeding at 75 MPH - this was the 1970s during the dreaded 55 MPH Jimmie Carter speed limit debacle. She protests to the CHP officer that she was merely going with the flow on the Orange County freeways where everyone drove at least 70 MPH in those days and the CHP clown responds that he could not pull everyone over so she and some others were picked at random by mere chance. She told him off, got her ticket and came home to Dawg fuming but proud she had told off the moron. I informed her that that $65 ticket was not representative of the true cost to her of this absurd fiasco and that she should have considered kissing his ass in the hopes of convincing him not to issue the ticket as our insurance premiums were bound to rise by some $600 per year and she had also accumulated some POINTS!. This was before France had initiated its draconian points programs and a time when all French drivers were outlaws so she never caught on.

Thank you Guadalupe for the Mexican mordida system.

By the way, in Chiapas, most motorists who have accidents where no one is injured, settle property claims on the spot before the cops can get there. Believe me, Dawg has opened my wallet to settle matters quickly and instantly whether it was my fault or not before the miserably crooked cops could arrive on the scene. Where there is no uncorrupted civility, people establish their own methods of settling matters quickly and without bureaucratic red tape and that works very effectively.

All in all, this thread has had its hilarious moments.

The worst thing that's happened to us was traveling through Guad in merciless traffic in the middle lane heading to lakeside, when a moto cop pulled us over (not that easy to get over), either) and proceeded to ask to see papers. Husband did so and acted dumb as a very polite post. After that, the conversation kind of dragged and finally, the cop gave up and cheerfully wished us a nice day.
Never did figure that one out.

That dam little bike cop used to follow our CA plated pickup looking for some reason to get us, but never actually managed to get 'er done. Sometimes old age and treachery wins the day. Luck helps.

And no, nobody should be subjected to a bunch of negative hoo ha after sharing a highly unpleasant experience on the road to Tonala. In fact, he should be given a "heads up" award.