Justine and Dylan’s Travel Blog

As an aside, for the enjoyment (or not)  for those who haven´t been to not-so civilised places like La Paz (or Rome or the Arc du Triomphe in Paris), I thought I´d throw in a few traffic rules we learned yesterday on our way through La Paz as passengers in one of the local taxi´s… (although I imagine these will be very familiar to anyone who´s been to South America, Africa, Asia or Bendigo)

• Adhering to red lights is optional
• If someone is tooting their horn at you, you´re ok: at that stage you know you´ve been seen (and will probably not be mowed down)
• Lines on roads to indicate lanes are a waste of paint. Besides, you can fit more lanes onto a slab of concrete if lanes are not marked.
• There is always an invisible third lane in the middle of the road. The direction of this lane varies depending on the speed and size of oncoming traffic
• A gap is a gap. A gap is always worth going for. Lives are expendable when a gap has been sighted
• Taxi drivers are actually part-time off-road rally drivers. This becomes apparent when not on sealed roads.
• There are no bonus points for hitting old ladies, dogs, people with boxes of stuff, etc. as these are all to easy to hit: for some reason they seem to throw themselves (or perhaps they are thrown?) in front of oncoming traffic every few metres
• You don´t need a power nap when tired: a near miss accident every few minutes is guaranteed to keep the adrenaline pumping all day…

More interestingly, everyone seems to go by the same rules and survives. I´d just be intrigued to find out how driving lessons are conducted…