Just as Chapala’s own traffic department got started on enforcing rules of the road, Jalisco’s Secretaría de Transporte (STJ) initiated its own crackdown at different points of the community, apparently focused on catching motorcycles operated in violation of state law.
Pick-up and motorcycle patrols, along with officers on foot, have appeared daily since Thursday, March 28 to conduct spot checks alternating from the north end of Chapala’s Avenida Madero, to the intersection of Libramiento bypass outside Centro Laguna and Walmart, and stretches of Chapala-Jocotepec highway running through Riberas del Pilar and La Canacinta.
Throughout the week witnesses have spotted agents snare scores of motorcyclists riding without helmets, florescent vests, or license tags or with excess passengers aboard. Those caught without requisite paperwork were forced to relinquish their bikes to be loaded onto flatbed tow trucks waiting on the sidelines to haul them off to the pound.
The head of the STJ’s Chapala branch office has denied interviews with local reporters seeking official figures on confiscation orders and traffic tickets issued to date.