After reading El Commercio, I now know the reason for Monday's transport strike: the unions of transport workers, drivers etc. were asking for the reassessment of the applicable traffic fines and a general amnesty for the suspension, confiscation or termination of driver's licences (all three the result of severe traffic offences), something that upset a lot of people. In certain areas of Lima, strikers even set things on fire and threw stones at strike-breaking vehicles.
A summary of the Letters to the Editor, the newspaper comments, and Michael's background information; Lima's public transport ten years ago was much more organised with proper bus stops, fixed fares (which are still advertised in most buses, but hardly ever adhered to, to the disadvantage of bus operators, it has to be said - it's the old race to the bottom ruling there), fixed routes and more orderly conduct - now people sometimes have to leap from the pavement to the bus step or the other way while the bus hardly stops, stopping buses take up two to three lanes holding up traffic, and are constantly involved in accidents with other buses, taxis, cars and pedestrians.
The whole strike was by some considered symptomatic of the lack of respect for public order; this is apparently a result of poor politics, poor policing, inadequate legislation and inefficiency in enforcing existing regulations.
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