No offense taken. When I got the speeding ticket for doing 90 KPH in a 70 KPH zone on Kulkulcan, I attempted a polite offer of an "expediency payment" to make the whole thing go away, but the very polite young Transito wouldn't bite, declining the offer by saying to me "it would not be proper" to take the money. I stopped myself from laughing out loud and took my medicine. He did offer the advice that they generally won't bother you for 10 KPH above the limit. I would have been ignored at 80 but not above. I've taken his advice ever since and have remained ticket-free. When we drove down here from New York we were stopped by a Federale outside of Veracruz. I won't confess how fast I was going but I will admit I was deep in felony territory. He wasn't interested in writing any tickets. He just wanted to scope out the car. After a brief discussion of German cars, a topic he was surprisingly familiar with, he wished us a good day and then paced us back up to the triple digit speed we had been driving, giving us a light show for a goodbye when he took the next exit. That was the only stop in 5200 miles of fairly steady driving and was the result of good planning, a good radar detector and dumb luck. Fortunately the Federales had not learned how to use the instant on feature of their radar guns and just broadcast continuosly. You could here them for miles.
>They have no jurisdiction over the car the only people that do are Hacienda. Incorrect. The ONLY person that can seize a foreign car is someone from ADUANA. And anyone else has to try to keep you held at the side of the road until the Aduana gets there. That's why most cars are seized at the exit of the airport by the federales because the Aduana dood is a couple of minutes away.
Just to ad - if you go to the airport in a foreign plated car, make sure you have your FM3 with you, or a photocopy of it, showing the page in the FM3 that has the stamp for your car import permit.
I don't know what the law says about cops taking bribes, but I know that Immigration agents can and do lose their jobs and can face prosecution for taking any kind of bribe. Of course many Immigration agents work there precisely because they want the bribes. But they do get in huge trouble when a case of bribery is properly documented.
