Driving In Guatemala City

Wherever I drive in Guatemala City I’m conscious that I stick out like a sore thumb; a large, fair-skinned foreign woman in a big white SUV in a city populated principally by short, brown-skinned people who walk or travel by the public buses (pejoratively known by some foreigners as “chicken buses”). I know that to Guatemalans I’m a gringa, even though strictly speaking the term refers to North Americans; and that, to poor Guatemalans, I’m just a rich foreign person.

When I arrived here just over a year ago, one of the first pieces of advice I got was that I should never show anger on the roads, because people were easily offended and nearly all of them would be carrying guns. I’ve tried to take that advice, not that I was in the habit of running down people who irritated me, but some days it’s hard to stay calm because here, machismo rules. Even if I toot my horn to warn someone they’re about to collide with me, they take offence and toot back, thereby only increasing the chance of a collision. I usually go quietly, but it isn’t possible to go anywhere at all without being a bit pushy.

Most weekday mornings I drive north from Zona 14, up avenida las Americas, along avenida la Reforma, to my Spanish classes in Zona 4. This part of Guatemala City looks much like many other cities, with a well-paved multi-lane road and wide median strip planted with large trees, flowering plants and green grass. I also drive around much less savoury parts of the city, where there are no living plants in sight, narrow rutted streets and crumbling houses - but usually only when I’m very lost. Then it’s a case of lock the doors, and try to read the map while negotiating one-way streets that always seem to run the wrong way, hoping not to end up in the violence-ridden Zona 3 and preferably not even in the old city centre of Zona 1 when I am on my own.

But even the big boulevard is never relaxing. My twenty-minute drive starts something like this. I ‘merge’ into the constant stream of traffic on Las Americas by edging onto the road until there’s no room for another car in the lane in front of me and they have to give way, a manoeuvre which is easier if there are two or three of us doing it at the same time, lined up abreast. Almost immediately the three lanes squeeze into two and a frantic line of buses and cars starts in at us. Buses, spewing black smoke, merge from left to right, rapidly, and without indicators - other than the man hanging out the open bus doorway flapping his arm and trying to catch my eye to let me know he’s coming through. The buses are red, rusty and unroadworthy. They overflow with people and the country-route buses carry fresh produce, large lumpy parcels on their roofs - and the occasional live chicken.

If I want to change lanes I do indicate, for what it’s worth, but must also act by leaping into any gap that becomes available. It’s hard to catch other drivers’ eyes to make sure they’re not going to run into you, as most of the cars on the road have dark-tinted windows. Many of them are large, new, SUVs. I know they carry rich Guatemalans, or gringos, or other foreigners. But on the road they are anonymous. They rarely indicate and never give way unless the other vehicle is bigger and/or flashier.

Yesterday I was behind a slightly browbeaten ten-year-old sedan carrying a Guatemalan family. With no warning they pulled across from the middle lane and stopped in front of me in the right lane. A woman had to be collected from the kerb, although she wasn’t quite ready, and her little boy was still playing around a few feet away, but of course there was no hurry, as ‘hellos’ had to be said and news exchanged before she got in. By the time I had almost managed to get around them, as of course no one would let me into the other lane, they were ready to leave again. This has now happened so many times that I rarely bother wasting my impatience. I try to be Zen about it – or maybe just Latin? Clearly the road is owned by all, to use as they wish.

Indicators are also strictly optional. Recently a friend told me her little story of driving with a Guatemalan man who, she noticed, never used his indicators. When she asked why not, he replied with shrug, “But we don’t always know where we’re going?”

The other day I passed a beaten-up, smoke-churning mover that was little more than an engine on a chassis, with the minimum of body panels, seating and other accoutrements (which, after all, are just so much icing on the car). It had no lights at all, so they used hand signals. The front passenger flapped his hand to the right - on behalf of the driver - and leaned his head out the window, looking cheerfully towards the cars in the target lane, while the car just moved across. I gathered this meant “We’re coming, ready or not, and it’s really no skin off our amiable noses if we get a few more scrapes on this old rust bucket” – or however you say that in Spanish.

Then there are the motorcyclists who specialize in weaving through traffic jams, mixing it between the big bruisers. They also ignore cars’ indicators. Twice last week I found a motorcycle whizzing past my left front fender while I was in the process of making a left turn. Kamikaze isn’t even the word for it – it’s more like a form of total fatalism with no personal responsibility accepted.

Finally, if we’re talking about hierarchies, there are the pedestrians. There are maybe half a dozen sets of pedestrian lights and an equally small number of pedestrian bridges across major roads in this city of 4 million people. Mostly, pedestrians are left to their own devices, meaning that during peak hour traffic they actually risk their lives to get to and from work. The pedestrian road toll is enormous. But this week, for the first time, I saw traffic police actually stopping cars to allow pedestrians to cross Avenida La Reforma – perhaps the beginning of a reform?

I don’t understand why there are not many more car accidents. It could be that the amount of traffic makes it impossible to drive fast in the city (of course there is also a speed limit, but that’s a fairly irrelevant consideration given that it’s not policed). The other reason might be that, despite the apparent chaos, there are some rules about this game of chicken.

They go something like this:
§ buses go wherever they want, whenever they want, and if you have a problem with that your car will spend a lot of time in the repair shop;
§ large, new cars have right-of-way over old, beaten-up cars;
§ flashing indicators count for nothing - it is a point of pride with every driver not to give way unless strictly necessary for self-preservation;
§ the only reliable way to merge is to open your window, look towards other drivers with an amiable expression, flap your arm in the intended direction, and go for it; and
§ always expect that, at any moment, a driver or pedestrian behind, beside or in front of you will do something totally unexpected.

Speaking of accidents… one day, while driving with a well-educated Guatemalan man, I asked him why he didn’t wear his seatbelt. He replied, with a slightly quizzical look, “But I don’t intend to have an accident.”

So perhaps, after all, that is the explanation?

Mariposa Pesada