Last week on a run from Boquete to Penonome, I received my first speeding ticket of 2011. I have a collection, almost one per year. How could that be in a land where people brag about settling all violations on the spot; I will not pay a bribe.

Tickets are easy to collect on the Interamerican, the traffic police have shiny new motorcycles and radar guns. They pick spots where the speed limit drops suddenly with or without signs. I learned one year, the expensive way, that when ever you drive through an inhabited area the 100 KMH or 80 KMH speed drops to 60 KMH without warning. Defining an inhabited area is subjective and discretionary, is it a town, yes, is it one house near the road, maybe.

Panama Police looking for an excuse to write a ticket

In this experience I was impressed by both the professionalism of the officer and his gadgetry. In addition the the radar he had a Nokia phone with a camera and keyboard. He asked me to exit the car, not a North American tradition and follow him to his motocycle. He showed me the radar reading of 87KMH then we went back to the car. He took a photo of my dusty license plate and my shiny new drivers license. Then a ticket emerged from a printer on his belt, it looks like a cash register receipt.

This ticket was earned in an uninhabited area west of Boca Chica some undefined distance after a school zone 60KMH sign. I went back to find the sign, it did exist and there were none after it until the turn to Boca Chica. I was not near a school when stopped. Still this is not a rant by me lamenting a ticket, it is to sharing the experience.

If you ever get a ticket you need to go to the ATTT office in the Chiriqui Mall in David or any other ATTT office in another city. Boquete has no ATTT office. The best time to arrive is when they open 8:30 AM, M-F, later will cost you time in the queues. I took the photo below before they opened.

Take your ticket to the right windows first where they enter it into the system, made me wonder if they had any record before. Then go to the next window and fork over the green.

They will give you a receipt, keep it.

One year they refused to allow me to get new plates for the car because someone failed to enter the fact I paid a ticket. I had to find my receipt go to ATTT and have a supervisor enter it. Since they batch transactions at night even having the receipt cost me another day and another trip to David waiting for the ATTT system to update.

You have thirty days before a 10% charge for late payment applies and if you are late and you hit a Pele Police checkpoint you might find yourself and your car hostage until you resolve the issue.

Learn from my experience, drive slow and lucky or you might pay a price, mine was low. I was racing to Penonome to meet with an expat there. We confirmed our meeting on Monday, when I arrived and called him the phone was answered by his son. The gentleman I was meeting died in a traffic accident on the Interamerican Highway that same Monday night. He paid the ultimate price, he and six others died in that accident, close to two hundred dead on the Panama’s highways this year.