Life on (and off) the Buses

Normally I travel to and from Antigua for my Spanish classes by bus. The buses here are very crowded and friendly although not particularly safe. Last week an overcrowded bus crashed over a precipice and killed 55 people, on the route to El Salvador. Ever since, the papers have been full of opinions of what´s to be done about it. My Spanish teacher tells me that on the route that I take, there were several similar accidents a few years ago, which led the authorities to improve the road, and there haven´t been any accidents since.
But then there are other dangers - which has made my journey to classes slightly different this week. On Tuesday a bus driver and his helper (who collects the fares) were shot dead. Apparently it was by a gang who were trying to extort money from the bus drivers (a similar incident happened last week on another route). Ironically it happened at the bus stop that I´d been meaning to take a photo of because it says ´Jesucristo, Esperanza de Guatemala´(Jesus Christ, Hope of Guatemala). As a result the buses on the route have gone on strike until the government can give them some guarentees of safety. The police don´t seem to be able to arrest those responsible (or when they do, they´re not able to charge them for lack of evidence or witnesses willing to testify).
So this week it seems that anyone who owns a pick up truck (in spanish ´picop´!), or minibus (in various states of repair) drive the same route picking up stranded passengers and charging the same price as the buses. The police are also running buses on the route. At my bus stop there are now 2 police man there in the mornings instead of one, but I doubt that these measures will last very long. At some point the bus drivers will need to go back to work - in order to support their families and the level of security may not have changed. This is the daily life in Guatemala.