Bad Drivers Cause of Avoidable Accidents
Hundreds and sometimes an entire community pays for the carelessness of some drivers who, with impunity, commit acts of imprudence on the streets every day.

It is quite common to for a vehicle to obstruct an entire intersection or pull a u-turn and with a Tránsito (traffic) officials looking on and doing nothing to penalize the driver. The evidence is in the number of tickets issues to drivers for bad driving.

Between January and May of this year, the Policía de Tránsito only issued 64 tickets for careless driving at an average of ¢2.000 colones (us$3.90) per infraction. That figure is for the entire country.

June figures are not yet available, but no major changes are expected.

Other figures that are disturbing are that during the period only 10 tickets, again at ¢2.000 colones each, have been issued for tailgating. And, another 122 drivers have been fined between ¢5.000 and ¢10.000 colones for throwing trash out the car wind\ow.

The low amount of the fines and the fact that many drivers do not get fined is an incentive to drive as you will and have no respect for the law or other drivers, let alone pedestrians, placing lives in danger on a daily basis.

Another law that is seldom respected is carrying on a conversation on a cellular telephone while driving. Tránsito officials only gave out 3.274 such fines of ¢10.000 colones each this year.

Germán Marín, director of the Policía de Tránsito, says that drivers confident that there isn't a traffic official around, don't contemplate about the dangerous that they expose themselves to and not to mention others around them.

"Some people get aggressive when they get behind the wheel. They don't identify the risk and seldom see a traffic official", said the Marín. Transit director also admitted that the low fines is another incentive.

Defending the situation, director Marín said that the Policía de Tránsito only has 800 officers for the entire country and the majority of the officers are concentrated in the Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM) - San José - where there is the highest density of traffic.

Traffic officers unfortunately also have to spend an enormous amount of time at traffic accidents which stretches their resources to the limit, Marín added.

The low fines is a big problem, according to the Tránsito director.

That is one of the of the reasons for the move by the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes (MOPT) to change the fine amounts established by the Ley de Tránsito back in 1993.

Viviana Martín, vice-minister of Transport, added that Ticos generally consider traffic accidents unavoidable and part of daily driving.

"The majority (of accidents) are avoidable. There are those drivers who feel empowered at the time of getting behind the wheel, in addition to incompetence because they haven't received good driving instructions", said the vice-minister.

Director Marín added that the driving instruction and licensing process is under review.

Under the current system anyone can submit to a driving test at the MOPT offices, which involves mainly avoiding some pylons, and be issued a driver's license. There is no requirement of proof of driving instruction or the ability to drive in traffic.

And that is for those who take the time to take the driving test. Drivers found driving a vehicle without a drivers license are fined ¢10.000 colones (us$19.50), which doesn't have to be paid until the actually get a drivers license. They may also have the vehicle impounded, something that rarely happens.