|
|
11/28/07 Wednesday, South Utah, USA
Back in the USA
We're
back in the USA, land of opportunity, wide clean streets, multi-lane
highways, all you can eat buffets, 24-Hour Supercenters, multi-racial
communities, cleanliness, drinkable water, four seasons, gluttony,
greed, excess and more. We crossed the border the other day after
waiting in line at the border for over four hours, jockeying for
position to be questioned by the U.S. border patrol. We were low on
fuel before we left Ensenada so we poured off two 5-gallon jugs of
extra fuel that we carried with us in case we ran out somewhere. This
gave us enough fuel to get to San Diego or further, so we thought. As
we got to the exit for the U.S.A border the Mexican police closed the
exit and redirected us to another border crossing further to the east.
This took us through a construction zone with no signs directing us to
the crossing so we ended up passing our turn-off. When we finally found
the road to the border crossing, we realized we had a long wait in
front of us. After about an hour of waiting in line, I had to drain the
tank on the motorcycle and another hour later I was draining the tank
on the race car, while Pat drove, to ensure we didn't run out of fuel
while waiting to get across the border. I'm certain that we would have
been left sitting there, backing up traffic, if we hadn't had fuel to
siphon off to add to the truck.
As we were driving through Tijuana we got pulled over by a suspected
motorcycle cop or Policia. He didn't want us to stop on the side of the
highway and directed us to a connecting street where we respectively
stopped for him. We hadn't done anything wrong to get pulled over for
so I was very suspicious of this guy. I'm sure Pat was too. Pat and I
both got out of the truck immediately. By the time I got around the
truck, Pat and the would-be-cop were already in a conversation. I
walked up behind the cop and was next to him before he saw me. He
turned around and said something in Spanish and shook my hand. Now,
these are not the actions of any police officer I've ever encountered.
Pat needed help finding the registrations for all the vehicles so I
went back around to the passenger side and pulled them from the glove
box. By now the suspected cop and Patrick were trying to understand
each other. The cop was pointing at his badge saying "Me Policia, you?"
He wanted to know what Pat's roll in society was or something like
that. As the suspected cop was pointing at his badge, I noticed that it
didn't have a number in the area where the number should be stamped. I
also noticed that he didn't have a radio but instead, was using
Nextel walkie talkie service. He was then explaining to Pat that he was
pulled over for driving too slow and that we would have to follow him
to the police station and spend about three hours paying the fine of
$70.00 U.S. This is a classic shake-down by corrupt Mexican authorities
if that's even what he is. Personally, at this time, I was sure we were
being shaken down and was questioning if this guy was a cop at all. The
suspected cop was fishing for a bribe and I knew it. At this point,
Pat's answer to almost everything the suspected cop said was "No
entiendo" and this was frustrating the suspected cop. We ended up
telling the guy that we would follow him to the police station. We went
half way around the block and the would-be-cop pulled over again. I
thought he would come back and offer us to pay him so we didn't have to
go to the police station and he did. He explained that we could pay him
$40.00 U.S. to avoid going to the police station to pay the $70.00
fine. All the time the guy was making out like he couldn't understand
English but when I told Pat, "This guy is giving us the shakedown.
Let's just follow him to the police station and the fine will probably
be about $12.00", I could see that he understood every word of it. All
the sudden, he was telling us "Go, just go!" as he shoved our papers
back in Pat's hand, so we did.. Minutes later a man in a nice SUV
pulled up next to us and explained that he had photos of the suspicious
cop and that his watchdog group was making a formal complaint to the
Mexican Government regarding the corrupt police in Tijuana. He was
relieved to hear that we didn't give the man any money.
Let me explain why I get out of the car when I get pulled over by the
police. I learned to drive in California when people were impersonating
the police to do car-jackings. The teacher in my drivers-ed class
taught us to pull over in a well lit, public place when pulled over by
the police. Put the car in park and turn the ignition off but leave the
keys in it. Get out of the car with your license and registration in
hand. Stand by your door and wait for the police to approach you. Never
walk back to their car. If it's a car jacking, let them take the car.
What you want to avoid is being in the car when they take it. When you
are in the car you are vounerable. Now days, police like it that way
but I still get out of the car.
Do any of you believe you get what you think about? Imagine if you get
a group of people thinking the same way about something. Well, whether
you believe in that or not, I want you all to think  .
You know,
the green goopy slimey stuff you put in your tires to keep from getting
a puncture flat, . Think about it for a week or so.
I'll let you
know later what happens.
|
If you see any
photos you would like in full 6mp resolution throughout
this website, please make a donation
and I'll email the photo you request to
you. Sorry to request a donation but money is tight, very tight.
|
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
All photographs
and designs ©Steven Gustafson & GlobalBikers. It is unlawful
to
copy or reproduce any of the photography and artwork in this website,
for personal or commercial use , including use on the Internet, without
authorization and licensing by Steven Gustafson. All photography, text
and html coding are the exclusive intellectual property of Steven
Gustafson and are protected under United States and International
copyright laws. No photography, text or html coding may be DOWNLOADED
and saved to hard drive,disc, etc...All material on this website is for
viewing only. |
|
|
