Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Peru: Lima's transportation on strike today

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Public transportation's workers in Lima are observing today a 24 hours strike, in protest against the new high fines established in the New Traffic Code to come into effect on July 21st.

About 60,000 bus drivers and 200,000 taxicab and "colectivos" (cars serving small routes as buses) drivers did not attend work early this morning.

Only a few buses were seen on Lima streets, whose drivers charged 100% than usual for the fares.

The taxi drivers who are actually working are also charging fees much higher than the usual (in Lima taxis don't use taximeters).

The most affected population however are the workers living in the surroundings of Lima, who had problems to get to their workplaces.

Due to this, the Peru's Ministry of Labor authorized a 2-hours delay in the entrance for all the workers.

Have other topics you'd like to see in our news section? If you or someone you know would like to contribute a news article to Living in Peru, whether it's translated or based on a personal investigation, send it to editor@livinginperu.com.

 | | | |

• Sports : Peru's Jefferson Farfan scored again for Schalke
• Peru : Peru: More than 70 injured reported after clashes in Abancay
• Sports : Peru's Daysi Cori heading to win the Chess Young World Championship
• TV/Entertainment : Peru's "Emergency Blanket" succeeds in the UK
• Peru : The "Pishtaco" legend strikes back in Peru

# Happy says :
30 June, 2009 [ 12:53 ]

I wish someone would write a full page THANK YOU letter in El Comercio.  Thanking the drivers for not coming to work. These are the BEST days of the year.

No deadly bus and taxi drivers
Less horn honking
Less pollution from motors

I LOVE DAYS when these people strike. It demonstrates how much better Peru would be without them.

Anyone ready for a subway?

# David N says :
30 June, 2009 [ 20:04 ]

Have to agree with you. Driving today was almost a pleasure around Lima, without those lunatics on the road. They should go on a permanent strike.

# Junior says :
30 June, 2009 [ 21:14 ]

I regret to inform you that not everyone has a vehicle and not everyone can afford to get one and thus the need for public transportation. A subway would be amazing but until we get one (if we ever get one) we'll have to make do with these trashy buses we have.
Getting around today was sheer mayhem. So no, they should not go on a permanent strike. They should learn they need to follow the rules in order to not get a ticket. If I make a violation, I need to pay for it. They're only striking because they don't want to be fined when they break the rules. Idiots.

# Chris Hobbs says :
1 July, 2009 [ 00:24 ]

i have to agree today i went larcomar and centro de lima there was
alot less cars

# Simon Harper says :
1 July, 2009 [ 11:10 ]

Tailgating, giving the finger, outright violence--Americans grow more likely to take out their frustrations on other drivers.

Some of the incidents are so ludicrous you can't help but laugh--albeit nervously. There was the case in Salt Lake City, where 75-year-old J. C. King--peeved that 41-year-old Larry Remm Jr. honked at him for blocking traffic--followed Remm when he pulled off the road, hurled his prescription bottle at him, and then, in a display of geriatric resolve, smashed Remm's knees with his '92 Mercury. In tony Potomac, Md., Robin Ficker--an attorney and ex-state legislator--knocked the glasses off a pregnant woman after she had the temerity to ask him why he bumped her Jeep with his.

Other incidents lack even the element of macabre humor. Last year, on Virginia's George Washington Parkway, a dispute over a lane change was settled with a high-speed duel that ended when both drivers lost control and crossed the center line, killing two innocent motorists.

Anyone who spent the Memorial Day weekend on the road probably won't be too surprised to learn the results of a major study to be released this week by the American Automobile Association: The rate of "aggressive driving" incidents--defined as events in which an angry or impatient driver tries to kill or injure another driver after a traffic dispute--has risen by 51 percent since 1990. In those cases studied, 37 percent of offenders used firearms against other drivers, an additional 28 percent used other weapons, and 35 percent used their cars.

Fear of (and participation in) aggressive driving has grown so much that in a poll last year residents of Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia listed it as a bigger concern than drunk driving. The Maryland highway department is running a campaign called "The End of the Road for Aggressive Drivers," which, among other things, flashes anti-road-rage messages on electronic billboards on the interstates. Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have initiated special highway patrols targeting aggressive drivers. A small but busy community of therapists and scholars has arisen to study the phenomenon and counsel drivers on how to cope. And several members of Congress are now trying to figure out ways to legislate away road rage.

Lest one get unduly alarmed, it helps to put the AAA study's numbers in context: Approximately 250,000 people have been killed in traffic since 1990. While the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that two thirds of fatalities are at least partially caused by aggressive driving, the AAA study found only 218 that could be directly attributable to enraged drivers. Of the more than 20 million motorists injured, the survey identified 12,610 injuries attributable to aggressive driving. While the study is the first American attempt to quantify aggressive driving, it is not rigorously scientific. The authors drew on reports from 30 newspapers--supplemented by insurance claims and police reports from 16 cities--involving 10,037 occurrences. Moreover, the overall trendlines for car accidents have continued downward for several decades, thanks in part to increases in the drinking age and improvements in car technology like high-mounted brake lights.

But researchers believe there is a growing trend of simple aggressive behavior--road rage--in which a driver reacts angrily to other drivers. Cutting them off, tailgating, giving the finger, waving a fist--experts believe these forms of nonviolent fury are increasing. "Aggressive driving is now the most common way of driving," says Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who codirects the Media and Injury Prevention Program at the University of Southern California. "It's not just a few crazies--it's a subculture of driving."

In focus groups set up by her organization, two thirds of drivers said they reacted to frustrating situations aggressively. Almost half admitted to deliberately braking suddenly, pulling close to the other car, or taking some other potentially dangerous step. Another third said they retaliated with a hostile gesture. Drivers show great creativity in devising hostile responses. Doug Erber of Los Angeles keeps his windshield-wiper-fluid tank full. If someone tailgates, he turns on the wipers, sending fluid over his roof onto the car behind him. "It works better than hitting the brakes," he says, "and you can act totally innocent."

Mad Max. While the AAA authors note there is a profile of the lethally inclined aggressive driver--"relatively young, poorly educated males who have criminal records, histories of violence, and drug or alcohol problems"--road-rage scholars (and regular drivers) believe other groups are equally represented in the less violent forms of aggressive driving. To some, it's tempting to look at this as a psychologically mysterious Jekyll-and-Hyde phenomenon; for others, it's simply attributable to "jerk drivers." In reality, there's a confluence of emotional and demographic factors that changes the average citizen from mere motorist to Mad Max.

First, it isn't just your imagination that traffic is getting worse. Since 1987, the number of miles of roads has increased just 1 percent while the miles driven have shot up by 35 percent. According to a recent Federal Highway Administration study of 50 metropolitan areas, almost 70 percent of urban freeways today--as opposed to 55 percent in 1983--are clogged during rush hour. The study notes that congestion is likely to spread to currently unspoiled locations. Forty percent of the currently gridlock-free Milwaukee County highway system, for example, is predicted to be jammed up more than five hours a day by the year 2000. A study by the Texas Transportation Institute last year found that commuters in one third of the largest cities spent well over 40 hours a year in traffic jams.

Part of the problem is that jobs have shifted from cities to suburbs. Communities designed as residential suburbs with narrow roads have grown into "edge cities," with bustling commercial traffic. Suburb-to-suburb commutes now account for 44 percent of all metropolitan traffic versus 20 percent for suburb-to-downtown travel. Demographer and Edge City author Joel Garreau says workers breaking for lunch are essentially causing a third rush hour. He notes that in Tysons Corner, Va., it takes an average of four traffic signal cycles to get through a typical intersection at lunchtime. And because most mass transit systems are of a spoke-and-hub design, centering on cities and branching out to suburbs, they're not really useful in getting from point A to point B in an edge city or from one edge city to another. Not surprisingly, fewer people are relying on mass transit and more on cars. In 1969, 82.7 percent drove to work; in 1990, 91.4 percent did. Despite the fact that the Washington, D.C., area has an exemplary commuter subway system, it accounts for only 2 percent of all trips made.

Demographic changes have helped put more drivers on the road. Until the 1970s, the percentage of women driving was relatively low, and many families had only one car. But women entered the work force and bought cars, something developers and highway planners hadn't foreseen. From 1969 to 1990 the number of women licensed to drive increased 84 percent. Between 1970 and 1987, the number of cars on the road more than doubled. In the past decade, the number of cars grew faster (17 percent) than the number of people (10 percent). Even carpooling is down despite HOV lanes and other preferential devices. The cumulative effect, says University of Hawaii traffic psychology professor Leon James, is a sort of sensory overload. "There are simply more cars--and more behaviors--to deal with," says James.

As if the United States couldn't produce enough home-grown lousy drivers, it seems to be importing them as well. Experts believe that many immigrants come from countries that have bad roads and aggressive styles. It's not just drivers from Third World countries, though. British drivers are considered among the safest in Europe, yet recent surveys show that nearly 90 percent of British motorists have experienced threats or abuse from other drivers. Of Brits who drive for a living, about 21 percent report having been run off the road. In Australia, one study estimates that about half of all traffic accidents there may be due to road rage. "There are different cultures of driving all over the world--quite clearly, if we mix new cultures in the melting pot, what we get is a culture clash on the roadway," says John Palmer, a professor in the Health Education and Safety Department at Minnesota's St. Cloud State University.

The peak moment for aggressive driving comes not during impenetrable gridlock but just before, when traffic density is high but cars are still moving briskly. That's when cutting someone off or forcing someone out of a lane can make the difference (or so it seems) between being on time and being late, according to Palmer.

Unfortunately, roads are getting more congested just as Americans feel even more pressed for time. "People get on a time line for their car trips," says Palmer. "When they perceive that someone is impeding their progress or invading their agenda, they respond with what they consider to be 'instructive' behavior, which might be as simple as flashing their lights to something more combative."

Suburban assault vehicles. This, uh, "instruction" has become more common, Palmer and others speculate, in part because of modern automotive design. With hyperadjustable seats, soundproof interiors, CD players, and cellular phones, cars are virtually comfortable enough to live in. Students of traffic can't help but wonder if the popularity of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles has contributed to the problem. Sales have approximately doubled since 1990. These big metal shells loom over everything else, fueling feelings of power and drawing out a driver's more primal instincts. "A lot of the anecdotal evidence about aggressive driving incidents tends to involve people driving sport utility vehicles," says Julie Rochman of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "When people get these larger, heavier vehicles, they feel more invulnerable." While Chrysler spokesman Chris Preuss discounts the notion of suburban assault vehicles being behind the aggressive-driving phenomenon, he does say women feel more secure in the jumbo-size vehicles.

In much of life, people feel they don't have full control of their destiny. But a car--unlike, say, a career or a spouse--responds reliably to one's wish. In automobiles, we have an increased (but false) sense of invincibility. Other drivers become dehumanized, mere appendages to a competing machine. "You have the illusion you're alone and master, dislocated from other drivers," says Hawaii's James.

Los Angeles psychologist Arnold Nerenberg describes how one of his recent patients got into an angry road confrontation with another motorist. "They pulled off the road and started running toward each other to fight, but then they recognized each other as neighbors," he says. "When it's just somebody else in a car, it's more two-dimensional; the other person's identity boils down to, 'You're someone who did something bad to me.' "

How can aggressive driving be minimized? Some believe that better driver's education might help. Driver's ed was a high school staple by the 1950s, thanks to federal highway dollars given to states. But a 1978 government study in De Kalb County, Ga., found no reduction in crashes or traffic violations by students who took a driver's ed course compared with those who didn't. Rather than use these results to design better driver's ed programs, the feds essentially gave up on them and diverted money to seat belt and anti-drunk-driving programs. Today, only 40 percent of new drivers complete a formal training course, which may be one reason 20 percent to 35 percent of applicants fail their initial driving test.

The inner driver. But governments are looking anew at the value of driver's education. In April, Michigan passed sweeping rules that grant levels of privilege depending on one's age and driving record. States with similar systems, like California, Maryland, and Oregon, have seen teen accident rates drop.

Those who lose their licenses often have to return to traffic school. But some states have generous standards for these schools. To wit: California's theme schools. There, errant drivers can attend the "Humor's My Name, Traffic's My Game," school, in which a mock jury led by a stand-up comic decides who the worst drivers are; the "Traffic School for Chocoholics," which plies errant drivers with chocolate and ice cream; and the gay and lesbian "Pink Triangle Traffic School."

But the real key to reducing road rage probably lies deep within each of us. Professor James of the University of Hawaii suggests that instead of emphasizing defensive driving--which implies that the other driver is the enemy--we should focus on "supportive driving" or "driving with the aloha spirit." Of course that's hard to do if a) someone has just cut you off at 60 mph or b) you live in Los Angeles instead of Hawaii. Nerenberg, the Los Angeles psychologist, has published an 18-page booklet called "Overcoming Road Rage: The 10-Step Compassion Program." He recommends examining what sets off road rage and to "visualize overcoming it." Other tips: Imagine you might be seeing that person at a party soon. And remember that other drivers "are people with feelings. Let us not humiliate them with our aggression." In the chapter titled, "Peace," he suggests, "Take a deep breath and just let it go." And if that doesn't work, the windshield-wiper trick is pretty clever.

With Anna Mulrine, Mary Lord, Brendan I. Koerner, Barbra Murray, and Steven D. Kaye

http://www.drivers.com/article/169/

# randolph hickson says :
1 July, 2009 [ 11:17 ]

USA: New York transport strike Sixty hours of workers power By Matt Waine A strike involving over 34,000 subway and bus workers in New York in late December brought the nerve-centre of world capitalism to a standstill. Despite vicious media reports calling for Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) leaders to be jailed and the threat to impose massive fines on the union, workers shut down the transport system of one of the world’s largest cities for 60 hours. The dispute centred on pensions and health care benefits which management wanted to dismantle. The MTA (Metropolitan Transport Authority) wanted to introduce a two tier pension system where new workers would have to pay 6% of their wages to pension funds and increase the retirement age by five years. The workers’ determined mood was hardened by management bullying over the course of the last year - 16,000 TWU members were disciplined last year. Despite the vicious media campaign and the comments of Republican mayor Bloomberg that the TWU were "greedy" and thuggish", there was enormous support for the strikers among New York’s working class. One poll showed that 70% of blacks and Latinos supported the strike. There was also significant support from New York teachers who recently had a terrible "give-back" deal forced down their throats. There were reports of teachers bringing their students to picket lines. In upstate New York, a local Central Labour Council (trades council) called on the New York state AFL-CIO (US version of ICTU) to call a general strike of all state employees. Fearing an escalation of the dispute a deal was reached, whilst in no way perfect, is significantly better than new contracts agreed for teachers, fire fighters and other public servants recently. The existing pension system has been saved for all workers and 22,000 workers will receive reimbursements for excess pensions. No productivity concessions were made and maternity leave has been expanded. All retirees will receive full lifetime medical coverage. In a period of intense attacks on workers’ wages and conditions by the bosses backed up by Bush & Co the outcome of the dispute is to be welcomed as it points to the direction the labour movement in the US needs to take. The level of support from the broader working class also shows the openness of whole sections of workers to the idea of militant industrial action to defend their interests. http://www.socialistparty.net/pub/pages/socialist012jan06/16.htm

# Victor Zambrano says :
1 July, 2009 [ 21:02 ]

This a big problem in Peru specially in the capital Lima.Lima is beautiful and unsafe city.The taxis,combies ,and all traffics are dangeruos.The
city needs better control and more police officers to the street.Also,
the people do not have education-not all-.Take care people and luck.

# Stewart Atkinson says :
2 July, 2009 [ 00:31 ]

Its a big problem in usa as well.
And dont forgetthe Police Brutality in usa how is that for education HAHAHA.
Look up Police Brutality usa  in YouTube loads of Police Brutality Videos & Police Killings in usa.
usa is worse than Peru considering the poor in usa get welfare housing  hospitals & education.

All I can say Hugo Chavez is the best President South Americas has ever had. At least the Poor in South America now have Mission de Los Milagros.

And no more us imperialism in South America.
Long live the Russia China Iran & South America Alliance.

Viva EL ALBA !

# AAS says :
3 July, 2009 [ 16:45 ]

If it's up to me I would regulate the Combies and Coasters completely off the Lima roads. Simply enforce no standing allowed, enough space to sit for an average size Peruvian. Also the vehicles should be clean, visible black smoke should mean a ban to be on the road, and misbehaving in traffic, by by driving license. Please bring back the big busses...

Why these traffic problems never get solved?! I think it is because of governments, they have a worldwide monopoly in providing this kind of infrastructure, and they do a bad job, traffic is congested everywhere!! Where is the free proper regulated infrastructure building / maintaining market? What if road / infrastructure builders and mangers where paid / rewarded for the efficiency of there products? Governments only do all these kind of projects (like currently in Lima) to be in the picture for the next elections, some help, some don't, but it's marginal.

Of course there are too many Combies, Coasters, Collectievos and Taxis in Lima and the roads system is so bad designed, that there is now flow, to many crossings, and bad drivers! An ovalo is an event here, they can help but there are to few in this city. What this city needs is an proper metro system linking all the mean avenues, and boulevards. At least 4 million people in Lima spend 1.5 dollar on public transportation, add it up and the money is there to construct something great. The trade off; less pollution, faster traveling and more time for productive work or private time.

@ Stewart Atkinson > Hugo Chavez is the best President South Americas has ever had.

How old you are 18.5? BTW What does this have to do with Lima transportation.

Chaves is more like a big liar, a demagogue and a low IQ clown of course. He could sincerely want the best for the people, but he is disrespectful towards his opponents he does not respect peoples sovereignty. He is a sort of communist ask the 100.000.000 killed people by that “ideology” who nice it really is, how stupid you can be to try that again? Social awarenesses is fine, we don't not to be exploited by losers in suites who only want all for them selves. The solution to the problems will not be found in the extremes (selfish capitalism, or Extreme left (Chavez), nope it will be in the middle Social Capitalism!!

Name

Email

Notify me via e-mail of new comments to this entry

Code :

Comment

• These comments are the property of their respective authors.
• Currently we only allow english comments.
• Por ahora solo se permiten comentarios en ingles.