Driving in Uruguay can be quite an adventure, especially for the uninitiated.
The first thing you must learn is that the lines dividing the lanes are purely ornamental, and that if you insist on trying to stay in the center of what you thought was a lane of traffic, you will be an obstacle to progress. If 5 little cars can travel alongside each other in 3 lanes, it would be selfish to try to claim a whole lane for yourself.
The second thing you must learn is to drive defensively, sort of like you would going through a war zone. Uruguayans have a congenital visual deficiency which prevents them from being able to see clearly in the mirrors on their cars, thus, they simply don’t use them. Consequently they will blithely dart in front of you with mere inches to spare and then be truly shocked if you tap your horn or glare at them.
Pedestrians are just a little worse than the drivers. I have a sneaking suspicion that pedestrian fatalities are Uruguay’s secret answer to population growth. One of my favorite pastimes is taking bets on which pedestrian is going to get run over in the striped pedestrian walkways along the Rambla. Most of them do not have a traffic light, and the pedestrians sort of meander across the walkway in ones and twos, totally oblivious to the speeding traffic which threatens to turn them into roadkill.
Then there are the technical issues. In most parts of the world, a solid green signal means you can go forward, turn left or turn right. NOT HERE!
A solid green signal means you can go forward or turn right, but you cannot turn left, except on a one-way street, unless there is a green arrow signal. Otherwise, you have to continue on until you can find a left turn without a signal, hold up traffic waiting to make the turn, and then meander back towards your target. This is especially interesting when driving in Centro where most of the streets are one way; complicated by the fact that the one way streets alternate in directions, but only more or less: one street will go left, the next 3 will go right, than 2 will go left, etc.
Another innovation brought in by the current government is the requirement that you must drive with your headlights on at all times. Allegedly this is a safety feature, but, since it requires more fuel to burn the headlights all the time, and since the government has a virtual monopoly on fuel importation, plus high fuel taxes, it is a secret tax on the driving public. (Who said the socialists weren’t smart?)
But, there are good point to driving in Uruguay as well. Where else in the world can you see on the highway virtually every model car ever made from the Model T Ford to the latest BMW?
