When red lights are just a 'suggestion'

Upon being chided by a backseat passenger after rolling through a traffic light just as it was about to turn red, the driver of a car I was riding in recounted that one of his childhood friends -- who still lives in Mexico City -- never fully stops at a red light at night. She taps the brake, looks both ways and keeps going.

 

In Mexico City, he explained, red lights are a "suggestion" to stop, because if you actually stop at night, you risk being kidnapped or killed by those who might pull up alongside you at traffic lights, guns drawn.

 

This terrifying scenario is not so far-fetched, as this horrifying story in Thursday's New York Times reflects.

print Share