Driving in Mexico

Driving in Mexico is all about paying attention to what's happening around you.  

Traffic rules, including traffic lights and signs, are there as a source of information about what makes sense at any given time, but are by no means taken as authoritative by drivers.  We were told by an acquaintance who is a long time resident of Oaxaca that a red light was merely a suggestion. 

The nice part about this is that no one gives you a hard time for violating "rules".  You're going the wrong way down a one way street?  Oncoming traffic simply makes way for you without making a fuss.  You aren't sure if making a right turn on red is permitted?  Well, as long as you can do so without getting in the way, no problem.  No parking?  Don't sweat it, everyone else double-parks, so if you need to perch for a few minutes everyone simply swerves around you and it's not a big deal.

But even traffic rules and conventions might not be as consistent as you'd expect.  For example,"Ninos Heroes" is the main east-west artery through Oaxaca.  It's a busy city street with three or four lanes of traffic in each direction with opposing traffic divided by a concrete barrier.  You'd naturally assume that the rightmost three lanes were headed east, and the leftmost lanes were headed west.  But what actually happens in the centre of town warrants a diagram.

At the far left and far right of the diagram the arrows indicate the lanes of traffic that behave as you expect.  Everyone drives on their right. 

But pretend that you're driving East across town starting at the far left of the diagram.  You start out in a lane on the right hand side of the road.  So far so good.  But at the first major North/South intersection, the road becomes braided. That is, the three lanes of traffic headed East swap over to be on the left hand side of the road, and the three lanes headed West swap to be on the right hand side of the road.  So far so weird.  But doable.  After all, there's always a lot of traffic on Ninos Heroes, and everyone else is doing the swap so it all sort of makes sense.  

So it again makes some sense when at the next major N/S intersection that I've indicated, the three East bound lanes swap back to being on the normal right -handed side of the street, and the three West bound lanes swap back to their normal location on your left.  

But there's one more twist.  At a minor intersection, the left-most East-bound lane braids over to the far left of the street, while the remaining East bound lanes stay in their normal right-hand location.  So you still have three lanes headed East, but two lanes are on the right hand side of the road and one is on the far left, with West bound traffic in between.

As far as we can tell, this is for the convenience of those who want to head North at the final major intersection shown (Heroico Collegio Militar), because that's where the left-most East bound lane ends in a "forced" left turn Northwards.

Easy-peasy, right? :-)

But the most amazing thing about the somewhat arbitrary nature of some of the driving conventions and the looseness with which driving rules are observed is  .....that things mostly just seem to work.  And it's not even too terrifying (except for the topes).  You just have to adjust your attitude, remain alert at all times, and not take anything for granted.