The Public Services Regulatory Authority (ARESEP) rejected Spanish private contractor Riteve's request to increase rates for mandatory vehicle inspections for the 10th consecutive year.
If Riteve, the private company responsible for mandatory vehicle inspections in Costa Rica, gets its way, you might be paying 205 percent more for your car inspection next year.
Traffic jams and blockades likely will return to Costa Rica's roads as private chauffeurs, or porteadores, announced they will resume protests next week. Unlicensed taxi drivers, or piratas, may join the demonstrations.
An audio recording of a conversation calling on private chauffeurs, or porteadores, to intimidate Traffic Police officers started circulating on social media this week.
“I warned them once. That means I will keep my promise,” President Solís said, referring to orders not to allow more blockades, which he issued two weeks ago.
Lawmakers revived the bill to replace prison time with monetary fines for blocking roads the day before private chauffeurs or "porteadores" protested a new special taxi regulation by blocking public roads across the country, snarling traffic.
President Luis Guillermo Solís ordered roads cleared Wednesday evening of private chauffeurs staging protests. He blamed them for the difficult emergency response to a deadly accident, in which an injured child had to be transported by helicopter to the National Children's Hospital.
