You are so busted……..or maybe not?
The line of vehicles went like this: our car, police car, city bus. A truck parked diagonal to the road was beginning to back out. Behind him on the road was the bus eagerly waiting for his turn to go. As always, everyone tries to use every inch of space they have here, even if they have no space at all. Roads are so narrow and most drivers lack that “do unto others” motto. When we move to Autlán, its one way streets with parking on both sides made us worry our SUV was just too big for this little city. Then we learned how to roll down our windows and pull in our mirrors and yell at bystanders to assist in helping us squeeze our vehicle through tiny places. When my parents visited, my mom would close her eyes while chanting, “I know you will make it, but I can’t watch.” You also learn to creep out into slow moving traffic until you are such a nuisance that drivers have to stop and let you move out. It’s just the way we roll. So we were not surprised to see this vehicle try to pull out of a parking spot when we were all at the dead stop next to him. We were surprised when he did not estimate well the fractional amount of space he had and ended up slamming into the side of the bus, shattering his tail lights. The bus honked at him and he returned to his parking spot bewildered. Don’t forget who was in the middle of us and the bus, the cop! Yeah, this guy is so busted for ramming a city bus. We waited with baited breath to see what the cop was going to do. Would he pull over? Would the bus pull to the shoulder? What? When we started moving again the bus just went on his merry way and the cop held traffic long enough to let the parked vehicle out and off it went. The car casually took the next right and the cop went left. That was it. Andy chanted his familiar phase that he has been saying for 5 years, “Welcome to Mexico."
The line of vehicles went like this: our car, police car, city bus. A truck parked diagonal to the road was beginning to back out. Behind him on the road was the bus eagerly waiting for his turn to go. As always, everyone tries to use every inch of space they have here, even if they have no space at all. Roads are so narrow and most drivers lack that “do unto others” motto. When we move to Autlán, its one way streets with parking on both sides made us worry our SUV was just too big for this little city. Then we learned how to roll down our windows and pull in our mirrors and yell at bystanders to assist in helping us squeeze our vehicle through tiny places. When my parents visited, my mom would close her eyes while chanting, “I know you will make it, but I can’t watch.” You also learn to creep out into slow moving traffic until you are such a nuisance that drivers have to stop and let you move out. It’s just the way we roll. So we were not surprised to see this vehicle try to pull out of a parking spot when we were all at the dead stop next to him. We were surprised when he did not estimate well the fractional amount of space he had and ended up slamming into the side of the bus, shattering his tail lights. The bus honked at him and he returned to his parking spot bewildered. Don’t forget who was in the middle of us and the bus, the cop! Yeah, this guy is so busted for ramming a city bus. We waited with baited breath to see what the cop was going to do. Would he pull over? Would the bus pull to the shoulder? What? When we started moving again the bus just went on his merry way and the cop held traffic long enough to let the parked vehicle out and off it went. The car casually took the next right and the cop went left. That was it. Andy chanted his familiar phase that he has been saying for 5 years, “Welcome to Mexico."
