Highway Safety

I'm told that Costa Rica has numerous laws intended to support highway safety practices.  These laws can be enforced with stiff penalties.  For instance,  helmets are required for both bicycles and motorcycles.  I'm told the fine can be as much as $500 if you're caught helmet-less.

The police presence here is very close to non-existent, which seems to be working pretty well.  The two officers that I've seen, ride together on a 250cc Yamaha, cruising slowly along.  The officer on the front has a blue helmet, his partner on the back a red helmet.  Red-helmet is the greeter and he happily waves to helmet-less families of three on a small motorcycle or shouts "hola" to bare-headed cyclists riding our dusty road.

It appears that it's enough that the law is on the books.  The enforcement of the law is an entirely different matter that I suspect is a real hassle for everyone concerned.

Left to their own devices, the locals tend to play pretty fast and loose with road safety.  I guess that when you're relaxed in your daily life you don't get as fussed up about what might happen.  As evidenced on a road trip we took last week, stuff does happen, though.

Since the standard pick-up truck only seats 2 or 3 in the front and there's that enormous bed in the back, there really should be no problem with loading the back with whatever you're hauling and whoever wants a ride.  It's not uncommon to see 4 or more people in the bed of a pickup plus all their gear.

We set off on a field trip with Donna, our destination Mal Pais, just across the peninsula.  Donna slowed the Land Rover to negotiate the dust mitigation work being done by an ex-pat down the beach.  He was spraying molasses on the road outside his home.  This creates a pleasant smelling hardtop surface, eliminating the clouds of dust which would otherwise be spewed on his property.

We just passed by this roadwork and along comes a small car followed by a pickup truck, it's bed full of white plastic picnic chairs.  The truck strikes one or more of the more serious potholes and loses the load of chairs, out the back of the truck.  What's that in the chairs strewn on the road?  Whoa!  It's a kid who was riding on the top of those stacked chairs and he's not moving.

Donna and Tazy spring into action while I stay behind to guard the Land Rover.  Triage indicates no broken bones nor much in the way of scrapes.  The poor lad did, however, land from a fair height onto his head so he's woozy and likely concussed.  A trip to the clinic is agreed upon.  Tazy talks the driver out of putting the boy back into the truck bed with a steel wheel well for a pillow, negotiating a ride for him in the back seat of the car that was accompanying this chair moving procession.

We're back on our way and Donna translates some of the conversation, including "I was driving so slowly", "you are an angel of mercy sent from heaven" and numerous other things I'm sure Taz would be far too embarrassed for me to include here.