On the way back from dinner with my parents and their friends, I was playing around with the gps/google maps combo of my new iPhone (yeah, it is buggy but super cool. I’m keeping it after all). I decided to look up directions and see which way it would tell us to get home from where we were on the north side of town. It was doing fairly ok until it made a less than optimal suggestion for a turn off the highway.
As you may have surmised by looking at the photo, there is no exit at this place. Google just told us to careen through the barrier, off an overpass, and land on the street below.
One item I neglected to talk about during my road trip with Aranud, even though it was a main feature of each and every day, is the profusion of topes (speed bumps) on every road and in every area we visited.
Mexico is a country of speed bumps. Sometimes there are signs warning you of their existence, sometimes you just lose a muffler or bang your head into the roof. They come in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes a single, sometimes a triple, sometimes a small mountain. Sometimes they are painted to warn you, sometimes they blend in to the road with greater camouflage than the best chameleon. Sometimes they are built by the government as part of the road system, sometimes built privately by people that want to slow you down for any number of reasons such as children in the area, the desire to slow traffic to allow them to exit their driveway more gracefully, or the possibility that you might see their shop and stop to buy something. They are not restricted to residential areas and may show up in the middle of a highway. To make things even more confusing, often there are “mini” speed bumps called vibradores in advance of larger speed bumps, toll booths or just because someone was feeling perverse enough to lay them down in your path. I assume all of this helps to reduce traffic fatalities, but it must exact a heavy national toll on auto repair.
Satori, driving — Stephen on 21 February 2008 @ 1:09 PM — 1 comment
Rocco and I are heading to Oaxaca tomorrow for the weekend. We have decided to rent a car. It is actually less expensive than taking the bus, and the added mobility will allow us to see some other cool stuff like Monte Albán.
That’s right, I will be driving in Mexico. I hope I don’t cause any incidents of La conducción agresiva.