Costa Rica Porteadores car vandalized by protesters
For a long time now there has been clash between taxi drivers and porteadores (the informal taxi drivers) with the government caught in the middle.
Porteadores have always provided the public’s alternative to transportation, particular in areas where the formal or legal taxis would not provide service, but more likely in smaller towns. The service as “porteos” provided that personal “door-to-door” service, where a private individual or company is contracted to pick up a person from one point and/or transferred goods to another, for a set or agreed upon fee. In other words, an unlicensed service, where taxi drivers and commercial drivers have to supply documents, like insurance, business permits and under go a vehicle inspection.
Legal taxi drivers look at the Porteadores as scab labor, and Porteadores look at themselves as people trying to make a living. Obviously, Porteadores have angered license taxi operators, drivers and associations and have pressured the government into producing legislation against the porteo.
February, 2009 Costa Rica Protest - Porteadores and Licensed Taxis - photo by Nacion
Porteadores have also gotten criticism from tourist. Some have been known by picking up customers on the fly, just as formal or legal taxi would and charge high prices and/or uncut license taxi drivers – so the confrontation continues.
As a traveler to Costa Rica, you can easily spot the porteos. Usually their vehicles do not display any taxi sign or if they do, it is sloppy hand-painted on the car door. Many will hang out at lower end or isolated hotels, local bars and restaurants. And chance are if you do need a taxi, and when asking a someone to call you one, they usually call a porteos, whose a friend. Most who travel to Costa Rica a lot will use a personal porteo.
This ongoing battle has now escalated to the point where government is now proposing a legislative bill (Proposal 16136) against the Porteo where they can still transport good, animals or whatever, but NOT people.
Back in March and February, 2009, the government tried to force Porteadoresto pay insurance and to go through a technical review, but will have fewer requirements than a taxi driver, which started protests. After eight hours of negotiations with taxi and porteadoresto’s leaders/organizers, hundreds of taxi drivers and porters became a traffic chaos in the capital.
For much of the afternoon the taxi drivers blocked the route of bypass between the roundabout at the intersection of Hispanic and Zapote. At the same time, the porters did the same in the rotunda of Social Guarantees, where riot police were called in to prevent incidents.
Anyway, today Porteadores are starting a country wide protest today, claiming about 7,000 who are expected to participate in protests all over the country, picking out 38 strategic points of concentration.
According to Germán Lobo, president of the Cámara Costarricense de Porteadores, their objective today is not to block, but to slow things down and he claims it will paralyze the country today with protests and roadblocks to pressure the government into stopping its plans to eliminate the “porteo” or informal taxi service from the current legislative agenda.
Lobo added that the porteadores will not amass in front of Casa Presidencial or the Legislative Assembly, a custom of protestors, since there is nothing more to talk about – that all has been said and done and now all that remains is using protests as way of forcing the issue of how important they are to Costa Rica.
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