In Puerto Rico there are what seems like a million cops driving around.  On very rare occasions you will see people pulled over.  I have often wondered what it takes to get pulled over because the driving here is so chaotic.

So far what I have learned, cops only seem to care about speeding if you are on a long stretch of road that has no stop lights.  What they really care about though is if your registration sticker is current.

About a month ago, I was pulled over for the sticker because it had just expired.  I drove by what would usually look like a speed trap in the states.  This however was a sticker trap.  Everyone that was pulled over, was pulled over for their sticker.  When I drove by, the police started waving.  Since I had really no idea what was going on at the time I just kept on driving.  Then a motor cycle cop starts putting on his helmet an starts coming after me.

In the States, well at least in Texas, when we get pulled over we try to move out of the way from the traffic to make it safer for the police, ourselves, and hopefully not cause as much traffic.  So I am sure the cop was a little surprised, because getting out of the way doesn’t happen here in Puerto Rico and that is exactly what I did.  The cop approached me cautiously with his hand on his gun and I can only assume that it was because I didn’t listen to their orders to stop earlier.

He quickly realized that I didn’t know Spanish and pointed to my sticker and then wanted to see my license.  I didn’t know that it had expired and acknowledged that I understood him.  He then asked where my casa was and told me in broken English to go there.  I found out later that I should consider myself lucky because usually if your sticker is out of date that the will tow your car automatically.