AS THE TACO TURNS - Vroom and Gloom

    

When the police officer inferred the automobile accident, or as I prefer to call it, miscommunication, was my fault, my mouth dropped open like a gaffed fish.

“When the insurance adjustors arrive, they will decide.” He said in a genial manner. This was to say, he had established a verdict. The adjustors would determine fiduciary obligation.

The Latina who broadsided me had wagged her finger in my face while blathering “No es mia culpa. No es mia culpa.” It’s not my fault. Apparently, she was right.

How could it be my fault? I whined. I conscientiously turned on my blinker. I made a legal left turn. The other car passed on my left as I was making the turn.

Officer Friendly reminded me of a younger, darker version of Anderson Cooper. Come to think of it, I couldn’t recall ever seeing a cop over the age of forty in this area. I wondered if the Barra Police Department pulled them from public service and shoved them into a back office to finish their careers stamping documents once they hit middle age.

My daydream was broken when I glanced over at Anderson’s squad car sidekick, Officer Starsky, and saw the reflection of my mangled car in his sunglasses. Life can be unimaginably cruel I thought. I had just washed and waxed it that morning.

Oh well, my car fared better than the clunker that sideswiped it. Freeway Frieda’s car had careened down an embankment into the silver web of a cyclone fence. Suspicious liquids were pooling under its belly. My Jeep, the champion heavyweight boxer, had outclassed its opponent. Unfortunately, an unanticipated right hook from her bumper had dislodged its side molding and peeled it back like the plastic strip on the back of a Band-Aid.

An hour later the adjustors arrived. “When you want to turn left you should put on your left blinker.” He said. So far, so good I thought. We were on the same page. He continued, “Then leave your blinker on and pull over to the right shoulder and wait for traffic behind you to pass.”

“But I don’t understand. There was no lateral road, only a shoulder.” I protested. Stupefied at his explanation, I racked my brain trying to make sense of it all. One time I had seen a Mexican execute this maneuver. He was carrying a couple of Brahma bulls in the back of his pickup and didn’t want to pitch them into a ditch by making a rapid turn.

Sensing my disbelief and confusion he continued. “Sometimes when a driver turns on his left signal it is a friendly way to say “Go ahead and pass me.” It can also mean that he wants to turn left. But usually drivers use the signal as a courtesy. Do you not have such good manners in your country?” He said in stilted English.

“No, I replied. It is a ubiquitous philosophy in my country that extending that kind of courtesy, as you call it, would be a really bad idea. People would blow their horns and yell at me to get my stoned, stupid ass off of the road."

The police officers had left the scene of the accident without issuing me a ticket. Maybe it was because DWG or Driving While Gringa was not a citable offense.

When I returned to mi casa I scoured the internet in search of Mexican Rules of the Road. My search came up empty so I have compiled a few of my own:

1) If the road on which you are driving lacks a lateral lane and there is traffic behind you, don’t turn. Or at least, don’t turn left.

2) If the big truck in front of you turns on its left hand signal, it means go ahead and pass me. The coast is clear. Maybe.

3) If you are driving at night, stay off of the road and drive through the field. All the cows are on the roads at night and if you kill or injure them it is your fault.

4) Never drive into a round-about a.k.a. Glorieta in a big city like Guadalajara. It will suck you into its black hole vortex and you may be there a couple of hours before it spits you out.

5) I have heard that if you are involved in a car accident you should leave the scene if possible, even if your car has a death rattle and is dragging its axel. The rationale is that both drivers will be taken to jail while the details are sorted out. This did not happen to me because we both had insurance.

6) Take a bus. The driver is probably familiar with his country's capricious set of road rules.