El libro Traffic: why we drive the way we do and what it says about us trae mucha información y referencias interesantes. Entre ellas la descripción de esta caricatura de Disney de 1950, Motormania, en la que Goofy juega un papel de Dr. Jekyll y Mr. Hyde --entre peatón y conductor-- (Mr. Walker y Mr. Wheeler), y una breve descripción anecdótica de lo que es manejar un coche en ciertas zonas de la Ciudad de México.
There are times when we do not want to signal our intentions. This is why some poker players wear sunglasses. It also helps explain another game: driving in Mexico City.
The ferocity of Mexico City traffic is revealed by the topes, or speed bumps, that are scattered throughout the capital like the mysterious earthen mounds of an ancient civilization. Mexico City’s speed bumps may be the largest in the world, and in their sheer size they are bluntly effective at curbing the worst impulses of chilango (as the capital’s residents are known) motorists. Woe to the driver who hits one at anything but the most glacial creep. Older cars have been known to stall out at a bump’s crest and be turned into a roadside food stand.
Topes are hardly the only traffic hazard in Mexico City. There are the secuestros express, or “express kidnappings,” in which, typically, a driver stopped at a light will be taken, at gunpoint, to an ATM and forced to withdraw cash. Often the would-be criminal is more nervous than the victim, says Mario González Román, a former security official with the U.S. embassy and himself a kidnapping victim. Calmness is essential. “Most of the people dead in carjackings are people that send the wrong signal to the criminal,” he explained while driving the streets of the capital in his 1976 Volkswagen Beetle (known as a vocho). “You have to facilitate the work of the criminal. If the car is all he wants, you are lucky".
Express kidnappings, thankfully, are fairly rare in Mexico City. The more common bane of driving in the Distrito Federal is the endless number of intersections without traffic lights. Who will go, who will yield—it is an intricate social ballet with rough, vague guidelines. “There is no order, it’s whoever arrives first,” according to Agustín Barrios Gómez, an entrepreneur and sometime politico, as he drove in the Polanco neighborhood in his battered Nissan Tsuru, a car that seemed a bit beneath his station. “Mexican criminals are very car-conscious and watch-conscious,” he explained. “In Monterrey I wear a Rolex; here I wear a Swatch.” At each crossing, he slowed briefly to assess what the driver coming from the left or right might be doing. The problem was that cars often seemed to be arriving at the same time. In one of these instances, he barreled through, forcing a BMW to stop. “I did not make eye contact,” he said firmly, after clearing the intersection. Eye contact is a critical factor at unmarked intersections in Mexico City. Look at another driver and he will know that you have seen him, and thus dart ahead of you. Not looking at a driver shifts the burden of responsibility to him (assuming he has actually seen you), which allows you to proceed first—if, that is, he truly believes you are not aware of him. There’s always the chance that both drivers are not actually looking. In the case of Barrios Gómez, the perceived social cost of stopping might have been greater for the BMW, higher as it is in the social hierarchy than an old Nissan Tsuru; then again, the BMW had more to lose in terms of sheer car value by not stopping.
Drivers not wanting to cooperate, unwilling to begin that relationship of “reciprocal altruism,” simply do not look, or they pretend not to look—the dreaded “stare-ahead.” It is the same with the many beggars found at intersections in Mexico City. It is easier not to give if one does not make eye contact, which is why one sees, as in other cities, so many drivers looking rigidly ahead as they wait for the light.
Yo conozco a Mario González Román. Es papá de un muy buen amigo, vive aquí en la Col. Roma.
Publicado por: Damogzito | 08/07/10 en 15:45
Excelente, tendré que comprar ese libro.
Publicado por: Jorge Cáñez | 12/07/10 en 20:26