4 ~ Sunday, Nov. 29, 1992 - North Shore News Grace under pressure in Mexico’s traffic mayhem STRICTLY PERSONAL TRATFFICO. MUCHO traf- fico. Something like three smillion cars, trucks and buses in Mexico City. It is a city where the car is king: low interest rates on loans to buy one, cheap insurance, cheap gas, cheap parking, and no park- ing meters. That, plus an innate under- standing on the part of pedestri- ans that their lives aren’t worth a plugged peso if they get caught out in the open street. I, with my Canadian arrogance about having a constitutional right to walk through traffic unharmed, was run down within hours of ar- riving in the Valley of Mexico. Fortunately, | was run down by a cart loaded with mattresses. No kidding. There I was, lying on top of a stack of mattresses, being pushed at a gallop through the narrow streets, the guy who was wheeling the cart from behind unaware he'd scooped up a pas- senger. Nobody stops for anybody. Mechanical! might is right. Archetypal Latin driving styles. All the bad stuff you hear. They’re crazy. They don’t care about hunin life. It’s all true. Yet, you know what? The traf- fic hardly ever seizes up. It keeps moving. Such traffico is a source of wonder. How do they do it? Three million vehicles in one city. ft should be pure gridlock. After racing around for a week in a huge gas-guzziing mid-’80s Chevrolet driven by a gentleman named Paco, and not dying, a great truth came unto me. Mexicans can drive! They can drive like heil. They are geniuses at driving. lam convinced I could take a crew of about 50 Mexican taxi drivers back up to Canada and rent them out to train the Canuck population to drive, and | would make a fortune, as well as save the nation. I mean, I don’t want to sound neurotically down on my own kind, but Canadian drivers are, generally speaking, among the most frustratingly inept in the world. I won't break it down any more than that, for fear of stirring up regional and tribunal furies. Our Mexican driver Paco drove like a racing car driver drives. Coming into a corner or an in- & Great Gift Ideas at BCAA PATA TA LAY First Alert Smoke Detectors First Alert Fire Extinguishers Starting at BCAA @ only $8.95 Centre Park Royal South Mail « Ph 922-3361 64 Three million vehicles in one city. It should be pure gridlock.99 tersection, it's a question pure and simple of who gets there first. I don’t think Lever saw Paco use the rear-view mirror. Or a signal light, for that matter. He always straddled the lane marker, waiting for an opening on either side ahead. His eye was fixed on the star- board bow of his surging super- tanker. If that passenger-side front bumper was the first piece of metal to reach a given space, it had the absolute right of way, even if it was only by a matter of inches. L tipped Paco as big as I could. He was great. lt was like having met a champion. Gracious under pressure, too. Never saw him so much as frown. Laugh a lot, sure. But never losing his cool. It occurred to me that Paco was kind of a blessed guy, a car-driv- ing master incarnated in a city where the car is an object of wor- ship and submission. No wonder he had that radiant look you sometimes see on jet pilots. Alas, Paco is probably an en- dangered species. And, terrific as it was to race around with him, we were com- mitting eco-crime big time, and | knew it. Hell, | was doing a story about it. tt was like jumpine into a war zone, grabbing a tank, aad roar- ing around in it, firing in every direction, being part of the war — in this case, a war against the lungs of everyone in the city. Instead of a cannon, we had the exhaust pipe. Traffico leads to mucho aero contaminado, si? Eighty per cent of the contamination is caused by cars. -6 with 2 cyl. (Extras Excluded) Reg., Mono or Kryptok Plastic Lenses To Powers + or - 6 with 2 cyt. VANCOUVER 823 West Broadway 873-3967 NORTH & WEST VANCOUVER 967-1611 A couple ef years ago, the pollution got so bad in Mexico City the government ordered every car owner to leave his car at home one day of the weck. : The result? Those who could afford it — and there are many — went out and bought an extra car. Companies, who couldn’: af- ford not to have their salesmen or deliverymen or drivers on the read every day, went out and bought more cars. Taxi companies went out and bought more cars. Even government departments went out and bought more cars. Today, there are more cars on the road in Mexico City than two years ago. Than ever, in fact. And, as a result, last year there were only eight days when the ground-level ozone level fell below the internationally accepted maximum level of {00 imecas, beyond which it is unhealthy to breathe. Every other day of the year, the air was dangerous, often rising to 200 imecas! There is a movement in Mexico City to bring back the bicycle. 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