A great group of traffic officers started a strike to protest against a MOPT directive, which forces them to work without a partner. As consequence, many of them have already stopped fining traffic law offenders.
Homer Alfaro, from the National Union of Technical Professionals in Traffic, affirmed that it is a MOPT duty to guarantee the safety of the officers on the road, but, by working alone, the directive makes them an “easy target”; so they will file a writ of amparo against Minister of Transportation Carlos Villalta and it will probably include director of the Traffic Police Mario Calderón.
The MOPT press department stated that the directive was surprised because the most important thing is to provide road presence for regulatory purposes and to attend any traffic accident. However, it added that they will continue to manage what is relevant to increase the number of officers and they will take into consideration the possibility of making officers work in pairs.
Mario Calderón expressed that he didn´t know anything about the officers’ protesting actions and he affirmed that they could be accused of “breach of duty”.