Puerto Rican Driving!

Occasionally, I must rant! Mustn't we all? Well, instead of doing it on some social media platform, I am doing it here. I can rant as long as I like, say what I want, and defend it all as being part of my website, so if you disagree.... hey.... go elsewhere!!

Having said that, of course I welcome other opinions, criticism and comments - and as you might gather, from my various rants on here, I am more sarcastic and observational than actually mad about things. Some things just really fascinate me, in a way that can even infuriate me, because it goes against every single instinct I have, every ounce of logic in my body, and sometimes even everything I have been taught.

I love living in Puerto Rico. Maybe I should start with that. There are a lot of great things about life here - and I will get to many of those things in other posts. BUT! I have to rant about the driving here.

It's hard to put it nicely... Puerto Ricans are, very simply, the worst drivers I have encountered anywhere on this planet in my entire life! That was the short version. Why? Well, where to start! Maybe I can start by saying that driving here, is genuinely like an obstacle run, with a heavy test of your patience and sanity. First of all, in Puerto Rico - despite what laws, police and official rules say - there is no such thing as a fast lane. People drive how they want, where they want. This alone creates an enormous amount of completely unnecessary traffic, mostly because, combined with the non-fast lane thing, they also for some strange reason, really like to drive next to each other at the exact same speed. Two cars will ever so carefree, be driving next to each other at 45 mph, where you can go 65, they will have no one in front of them, but each have about 10 cars directly behind them. And they will think nothing of this. And I have even experienced this with three or four lanes, all with cars going the same speed next to each other. And if you dare to honk or show any type of aggression, YOU are definitely the asshole, as they will "point out" by violent hand gestures, screaming and waving of arms, as you pass them, or they pass you. Drivers are also unbelievable petty. So, if you DO do something to piss them off, they will follow you for the next 30 miles, trying to make your driving as difficult as possible. If they decide, you have pissed them off, they will VERY actively do everything they can to try and prevent you from passing or getting by. THIS they have time for - just not driving properly. It's a very strange combination of being clueless, lazy, inefficient AND aggressive and entitled, all at the same time. They also only see what they, themselves, need to do right now. There will be no sense of "helping" others, by getting out of the way, for instance, when you see someone come up behind you, faster than you're going. Quite the opposite, in fact. They will casually come in front of you, for no reason at all, even when you are almost about to drive past them, causing you to nearly hit them. Because in this lovely situation, another wonderful Puerto Rican driver syndrome comes in: They don't use their turn lights. It is extremely rare that they do, and if they do, it's because the lights are on by mistake. This is incredibly infuriating, when you have someone in front of you, suddenly slowing down, quite a bit, because for some reason, it's now your job to guess if they're simply slowing down for fun, or if they're getting ready to turn somewhere. If they need to turn or take an exit, they do it in two ways: Either they slow down, and start to pull over so far from the exit, you have no clue what is going on - OR - they do it so late, they very nearly cause accidents, because they cut in front of a bunch of people. Instead of starting to head closer to your turn lane a bit in advance, at a reasonable speed, they also almost always decide to do this, when they are basically AT the exit, which means they cause traffic behind them, because they try to cut in front of others, who have lined up for that exit, and while they try that, they block everyone behind them.

And that's not even all. Red lights are kind of a suggestion, more than a rule in Puerto Rico, and when stopping for a red light, people are either basically in the middle of the crossing, or they have such a big gap between them and the lights, or the car in front of them, it makes me wonder what they need all that space for. I am talking space that could fit at least two, sometimes 3 cars.

Then there's parking! Puerto Ricans park where they want, when they want and how they want, with zero regard to whom it might bother. Parallel parking? No problem. As long as you get in that store to get your sandwich, it doesn't really matter that 45 cars get piled up behind you, because they can't get past. And even more fun, I have encountered many times now, when someone parks this way, they will leave their car door open, giving everyone even less space to pass.

And on any road, someone pulled over, a cop car, road work or any type of activity along the road, needs to be heavily gawked at, at very slow speeds. So even when there just simply are some workers cutting some grass or branches, you can for sure expect speeds to be reduced drastically. And FOR SURE, when there is a police car somewhere. It doesn't matter what it is doing, or where it is. As soon as they see it, they reduce speeds drastically, to way under the speed limit. And then there are the trucks.... There are many trucks on the roads in Puerto Rico, and Puerto Ricans cannot seem to figure out how to simply pass them. Every single time there is a slower truck on the road, you can expect complete chaos and severe slowdowns, simply because there is a truck, and because passing this vehicle seems to be an incredibly complicated process for people. It's very hard to explain. But if you ever drive on the highways here, you will very quickly see what I mean, because this is every single time, and I'm not kidding!

When someone comes from a side road to join another road, it also seems that people here think it is the job of the people on the main road to make space, stop or let someone in, and not your job to wait until there is room to join. This also causes enormous amounts of unnecessary traffic, and combined with the no turn lights and the slow speeds, this is very annoying. The same thing goes for when you can turn on red, which you can here. Here, again - the fact that the light is technically red for you, seems to be more of a suggestion. People will literally cut right in front of someone coming through the green light, even if they are going much faster than you are. They either don't see a thing, besides what they need right now, or they don't care one bit.

And then, of course, on top of that, you have all the other usual things, like people texting while driving, being much more interested in their conversation, either on the phone or with another person in the car, than they are in driving properly, or putting on makeup or eating.

So yeah, clueless doesn't even begin to describe it. As annoying as it is, it's really almost fascinating to me. As a Danish person, and as someone who has lived in the "mainland" USA for quite a while, I cannot comprehend how you can be this clueless. And it's not one person here and there. It is so many people, who do this, that you sometimes wonder if they're all connected to the same broken brain. This horrific driving might also explain, why such a large number of cars here have more than a few dents in them. Some almost look like they could fall apart at any moment.