Female Traffic cops rule the streets of Lima
March 7, 2009
Traffic laws in Peru are no joke
Peru’s transit police aren’t famous for their honesty or work ethic. Anything but. In line with all Government employees, they are so underpaid that they see corruption as the only way to make a decent living. For transit police, this usually involves pulling over those drivers who violate traffic laws and writing up a ticket… a ticket that can be ripped up on the spot though, should you be kind enough to collaborate with a little lunch money, beer money, a holiday bonus if it is nearing Christmas, or even money for gasoline.
This corruption festering at the heart of Lima’s, and all of Peru’s, never ending transportation crisis means that roads stay full of dangerous drivers, vehicles that are falling apart and people with no regard for the rules or lives of others.
Female officers
Policewoman and her motorbike (by Bruno Der Konig Eidechse)
Last week it was decided that all male traffic cops would be reassigned to desk jobs, and the streets would be run by women. Why? Well it has long been agreed the female officers are far less corrupt – the majority don’t ask for bribes and when offered they refuse them. And rather than letting people off with warnings, they are far stricter with drivers who commit crimes like running red lights or driving under the influence.
In total, authorities in Lima are removing 500 male officers from the streets, while 2074 female officers will take over.
But the decision is not without its risks.
Violence
In 1999 similar changes were made to transit police staffing. Due to high levels of corruption, a greater level of control was handed to female officers, and more women were placed onto the streets.
Levels of violent attacks on police officers soared. “Soulless inhuman criminals without consciences“, a term I think accurately describes many drivers, but especially drivers of taxis and buses, would attack lone female officers attempting to enforce the law. Some were even seriously hurt when drunk or speeding drivers would do things such as run them down or knock them off their motorbikes to avoid fines. Mostly though, female police officers had to put up with insults, lewd comments and general disrespect.
Peru’s “Finest”
It seemed drivers were unhappy with the female officers. They were too strict and refused to accept bribes. Recently, Lima’s taxi drivers took part in a protest against the number of tickets issued to the criminal drivers in their ranks, and against the number of license revocations of drivers too dangerous to be let on the roads. They are also very unhappy with being forced by recent laws to have their vehicles pass safety and emissions inspections.
Approval
As it stands, 69% of people who participated in an online survey carried out by Peru.com agreed with the replacement of male officers with female ones, with 29% disagreeing with the move to improve safety and lower corruption.
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Silly me, I thought the solution would be to hire honest officers, pay them well, and institute a stringent internal assessment.
Traffic enforcement is a colossal joke, the only thing keeping the accidents low here in Cusco is that most of the streets are too narrow to get up over 30 MPH.
The idea of putting only female officers on the street just illustrates how bad Peru is at organizational behavior and how incompetent the bureaucracy is.
How quickly the Peruvian government forgets when these same female officers were kidnapped by the combi drivers in their last attempt at enforcing traffic laws.
When Peru begins to recognize its mistakes it will learn from its errors and avoid repeating them in reincarnated forms of bad or dysfunctional ideas.
Compared to where I’m from in Florida, Peru has far less fatal transit accidents, but like Ward said, that’s due to narrow streets or in the case of Lima due to its perpetual traffic jams.
estuve en peru tiempo atras estas motopolices estan muy majas,con pantalones ajustadosn y botas de montar brillantes negras perecen que fueran hacer una pornopelicula digo a los chavales del peru se debe enderezar todo cuando ven a estas tias en moto,
HOLA QUIERO OS DECIR QUE OPINO TODO LO CONTRARIO , ESTAS MUJERES SON REALMENTE MUY BELLAS YO TAMBIEN VIAJE A LIMA HACE UN TIEMPO . LAS MUJERES POLICIAS PERUANAS EN BOTAS DE MONTAR BRILLANTES DE CUERO SE VEN MAS QUE HERMOSAS INCLUSO SE LO DIJE A UNA OFICIAL A LA CUAL ME PERMITIO UNAS FOTOS , LO QUE QUIERO DESTACAR DE ELLAS Y ESPERO NO EQUIVOCARME ES QUE CON SU POBLACION SE MOSTRABAN MUY AMABLES Y SOLIDARIAS COMO LAS TAMBIEN BELLAS POLICIAS DE CHINA CUANDO ESTUVE AHI . COSA QUE EN MUCHOS LADOS COMO EN ESPAÑA NO SE VE , ESO ES MUY IMPORTANTE , Y TAMBIEN DESTACO LOS DESFILES DE PERU QUE HE VISTO EN PAGINAS WEB DE COMO LLEVAN FIRME EL ORGULLO DE DESENDER DE INCAS Y LLEVAR PARTE DE SUS TRAJES TIPICO MONTADO EN SUS TRAJES DE OFICIALES . AHORA VI TAMBIEN DE COMO CHILE SIEMPRE SE BURLA DEL PUEBLO PERUANO CUANDO ELLOS NO LLEVAN EL MAS MINIMO ORGULLO , INCLUSO HE VISTO EN CHILE QUE SIEMPRE BUSCAN PARECER EUROPEOS HASTA EN SUS APELLIDOS SIN SABER DE LO QUE PIENSAN DE ELLOS INCLUSO ACA EN ESPAÑA . QUIERO TERMINAR DICIENDO QUE LAS MUJERES PERUANAS EN GENERAL SON LAS MAS BELLAS MORENAS Y PURAS DE AMERICA , Y SUS OFICIALES SON UNA DIGNA REPRESENTACION.
oh very very much!!!!!!!!beauties peruvians policewomans en ridingboots oh yeaaaaaaaamaxim!!!!!
I don’t know If I said it already but …I’m so glad I found this site…Keep up the good work I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say GREAT blog. Thanks,
A definite great read….
I am not sure that the government decided to put female officers on the street to titilate Peruvian men. Unfortunately other writers are correct, what they need to do is give police officers a decent living wage. There was a news article in El Comercio recently that stated that almost all Lima police officers have second jobs as security guards and end up working around 100 hours a week in order to make ends meet. Pitiful Alan do something about it.
[...] has been made on the investigation, and so little evidence uncovered that the regularly ridiculed national police of Peru are being taken even less seriously. “What’s next?”, people ask, “ghosts, [...]