I have heard that driving in the Middle East is worse than in Bogota, but I will have to see it to believe that. Here it’s a competetive sport, and the only rule is: do whatever is necessary to get your way. Me first. Nothing else matters.
Cars are either crackerboxes (little Korean ones, mostly) or SUV’s. Either way, the drivers act like caged animals, and not without reason. Buses are everywhere, as are taxis, and the roads are simply clogged most of the time. Shoulders are unheard of, even on the Autopista, the largest highway in the country.
Dealing with Busus
Buses come in all sizes, shapes, ages, conditions. Lots are independent and lots are owned by a few powerful and wealthy bus companies or families. There are a few bus stops, but they are only useful to people who need to stay out of the rain, and since most Bogotanos carry umbrellas, that’s not really a big deal. Buses drive up and down major roads, one behind the other, and people wait on the curb wherever they happen to feel like standing, and flag down the buses.? Therefore, a bus can stop 6 or 8 times in a block to pick up a passenger, and if you have 8 buses on the same block trying to stop for passengers, jockeying for position and pulling in and out–well, you can picture the chaos. Each bus has a different route, and the streets it will travel are posted on the front, but the signs are hard to read, so lots of times people flag down the buses just to read the signs and see if they want to go there. If not, they have a little finger-wagging symbol kind of like the one parents use in the US with little kids to say, “No-no.”
Then, whenever someone wants off a bus, the passenger presses a button and the driver pulls over wherever he happens to be. But if he can’t pull over because of the traffic, he stops in whatever lane he is driving in and lets the passenger out to dodge (and interfere with) traffic.
And since the bus fair is low and a driver needs a lot of passengers (which they DO get–lots of busses literally have people hanging out the doors), the buses dart in and out of the right lane without notice, cutting off whatever other traffic is trying to make its way down the street.
Motorcycles–Taking EVERYONE’S Lives in Their Hands
Even worse, motorcycles. Because the traffic is so bad, lots of people resort to these death machines, because they’re able to legally weave in and out of traffic and go between lanes–not just when cars are stopped at an intersection, but anytime they feel like it. Two of my friends drive them, and they say they get zero respect from drivers, but also admit that is because motorcycles GIVE zero respect to drivers. It’s common to see them smashed up on the road–if you are out in rush hour, you can see it almost any day.
Los?Carros (The Cars)
The car drivers have no respect for anyone either. Since rudeness and confrontation of any type are totally unacceptable in Bogota, driving etiquette requires that you cut off anyone you can, ignore red lights, speed up to keep people from being able to get into a lane, blow your horn constantly, and ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS refuse to look at any other drivers, so you can pretend that you didn’t know how offensive and rude you were being.
The Horses and Carts, and the Men and Carts
Poor people lots of times have horse-drawn wooden carts that they use to scour the city for scrap cardboard, plastic, and metal to sell to recyclers. The RICH poor people have horses, that is. The POOR poor people pull their wooden carts themselves.? And these carts are all over the city, on every road, including the major highways and thoroughfares, at all times of day. Now, nobody can begrudge the cart owner his meager living, but it’s true that a guy moving approximately one mile per hour tends to have a negative effect on the traffic flow.
If That’s Not Enough…
And if you can learn to deal with the bad habits of the various drivers, you still have to contend with a billion types of obstacles.? The first one is pavement that just sucks in general.? Some people say the city is built on sand, some people say the ground is full of water, some people say the climate is too harsh, but whatever the reason, the fact is the roads are always in disrepair.? Pot holes can be the size of a dump truck, and just generally crumbling pavement is the norm.? Manhole covers are almost always missing, because poor people steal them to sell for scrap metal.? A gouged out section of a major road might not be repaired for a year or more.
Tree trimming and any other type of maintenance that the city feels like performing can be done at any moment, and a lane or two of traffic is closed down, even in the middle of rush hour. When three lanes of a totally clogged road suddenly and without warning are cut down to one, well, we’ll all just sit in traffic another hour or so.
“Driving in Bogota”–The Video Game
A friend of mine has an idea for a video game about driving in this city. Besides all the hazards and obstacles mentioned above, it will include a few other not-so-outrageous traps like a guy on a motorcycle who pulls up next to you to unscrew your side view mirror so he can sell it on the street. A pothole the size of your car that opens up 10 feet in front of you. A street dog darting out into the intersection where three lanes of traffic are turning left, even though only one lane is allowed to.
The Good Part
The one advantage to driving in Bogota is that, once you have done it for a while, you can go anywhere in the world and hold your own.
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May 8th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Hahaha, I really loved reading this one brings back so much memories.
And don’t forget the vendors and the jugglers and the acrobats and the lone traffic cop waving his flag not to guide traffic but because his arms are cold!
May 10th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Oh yes, there is a whole separate world going on at every intersection–hardly anything you can’t buy through you car window when stopped at a light.