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Aug. 28, 2006 If you visit South America, you will soon find out that drivers do not yield the right of way to pedestrians. However, they do not usually run red lights, though there are exceptions even to that rule, so if you are at an intersection that has a traffic signal, you should definitely wait until you have the green light. You should not count on any driver to slow down for you merely because you are directly in front of his onrushing car. That goes for cab drivers and bus drivers too, who seem to take no notice of you, but, rather, come bearing down upon you at full speed, expecting you to jump out the way. One little catch that I’ve noticed at intersections that do have traffic signals is that you cannot always see whether you have green or red. It all depends on which corner you’re standing on. The natural inclination, in such a case, is to start walking when the other pedestrians start, but this can be deceiving, because everybody here, as in the US, jaywalks. So assuming you have the green light, you could easily be hit, if a driver is a little more negligent than usual. Most drivers, of course, will not actually hit you, but they can sure cut it close. The best thing to do, if you can’t see the green light, is to wait for the cars going in your direction to start moving, as they generally won’t roll unless they have green. Besides they make a good shield. The trickiest drivers are the ones who are making turns. In this case, you may actually have the green light, but a driver making a left or right turn in front of you generally drives as if he were totally oblivious of your presence. They come so close they almost knock your feet out from under you. If you are in the crosswalk, and you see a car coming in the opposite direction from the one in which you are walking, you may not realize until the very last minute that he is going to turn. So it is almost unavoidable that sooner or later you’re going to have a close call, if not worse. Argentina is better than the others, so you feel more confidence there. But in Brazil, Paraguay and Perú, it can be scary. Sometimes they drive like maniacs. I mentioned this to a man in Lima, Perú, and he acknowledged that drivers do drive just as I have described. But he elaborated further to say that Lima is notorious for hit-and-run drivers, so if you do get hit but not killed, you may not be able to expect that the driver will stop. And even if he stops, I don’t know what insurance he might or might not have. I don’t know the laws on public-liability insurance in these parts, but I do suspect that there are many drivers who don’t know the first thing about any kind of insurance. Coming up on 21 months in South America, though, I have to confess that I have not seen a single accident. But it never hurts to exercise caution. There are countries where the drivers are worse. This is not to say that South Americans are less polite than Americans generally. They’re not. In fact, I’d say they are probably more polite. But this is just their accustomed way of driving. Anyway, if you come down this way sometime, it’ll pay to be aware of the unofficial rules of the road the minute you step out of the airport, and not have to find them out the hard way. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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