Via Breitbart.com:
Cuba is the North Korea of North America. The combination of an insanely centralized command economy and an economic embargo by the United States have left the country without a reliable transportation system. As Result, hitchhiking is how many Cubans get to work.
Hitchhiking is a way of life in communist Cuba, where cars are scarce, a gallon of gas costs a third of a civil servant's monthly salary, and public transportation is unreliable and overcrowded. Lately things have worsened, with even acting President Raul Castro admitting in December that public transport was "practically on the point of collapse."
The Cuban government has recognized this problem. But rather than let in a little bit of the free market to help alleviate the needs of Cubans, they decided to take a different approach.
On the capital's outskirts, government inspectors wave down government vehicles. Those with empty seats must take hitchhikers, a law that results in 68 million free rides a year, according to the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
They decided to use authoritarianism to solve problems caused by authoritarianism. Your car is not your own, it belongs to whoever needs a ride at the moment.
You would think that Cuba would want to encourage more people to have cars of their own to help alleviate these problems. Apparently not.
Buying a new car and most used ones requires state permission, which is hard to get. But Cubans can own vehicles built before the 1959 revolution, including the classic, if weather-beaten, Mercedes, Hudsons, Mercurys and Buicks still cruising the streets, running on diesel to beat the $4 price of a gallon of regular gas.
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