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Some More About Traffic
(Sep 2002)
Which side of the road?
Belizeans don't have a strong sense of which
side of the road is the safe side. "What
difference does it make?" they say. Here's
how I explain it.
"You know that sound that a piece of
heavy equipment makes when it's backing up? BEEP,
BEEP, BEEP! Well that's the same sound that goes on in
my brain when I'm on the wrong side of the
road."
My ol' daddy, teaching me how to drive,
would nag at me when I was passing.
"Pass, pass, pass" he would
say. "don't fool around. Step on it, and get back
on the safe side of the road."
No such thing with the Belizeans.
They pass any time they feel like it, and of course, it's
manly to pass and sissy not to pass. They die in
droves (two or three carloads a week) passing on blind curves,
and underestimating the speed of oncoming traffic.
They drive down the wrong lane of a
divided expressway for a block to avoid having to make a
U-turn. And the police don't give tickets for this, and
really, nobody cares.
Moral: As a conscientious defensive
driver, you should always expect the worst. You cannot
speed and expect the other driver to watch out for
you.
Stop signs.
In the US, a stop sign means "STOP".
Period. Here (and in Mexico) it means that the other
guy has the right-of-way, legally, if there's an
accident. i.e. you don't have to stop, but you better
not get hit or it's your fault!
 Parking.
Since it doesn't make any difference which side of the
road you DRIVE on, it doesn't make any difference which way
you are pointing when you park!. However, they do have
some interesting signs. The sign to the right here
means "No parking on this side of the street from the
first thru the fifteenth of the month." And they
do enforce the parking laws, especially on Gringos.
Left Turns. It is the law in
Belize that if there is any traffic coming from either
direction, you should pull off to the right until it
is clear to make the turn. This leads to the bizarre
situation that someone in front of you will signal for a
left and pull off to the right. (Of course this
is wrong! You should never signal to do one thing and
then do another. ) But, in their way of thinking it is
right, since you should know that they really
aren't going to turn left. WARNING. If you
signal for a left turn, and someone is behind you, they will
pass you. If you turn, they will hit you. And it
will be your fault. So. Signal to the right,
pull off to the right, and wait until the road is clear and
then make your left.
Curves. My ol' daddy used to
coach me on looking down the road a long ways.
"Did you see that light change?" he would ask
about a signal three blocks away. Most Belizeans seem
to be watching the road about twenty-five feet in front of
the car. I say that because I've noticed that they
never reduce speed before entering a sharp curve. They
brake in the middle of it. If it's raining or muddy,
they lose control, of course. Please remember that
they will brake, and you will run into them if you are
following too closely.
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