Here are three parked cars with Uruguayan license plates. One was parked by someone who did not learn to drive in Uruguay.
Can you figure out which one it is?
Acuity test
Tag: driving
Another single-car crash
Several years ago, I saw a scene where a car had left the Ruta Interbalnearia eastbound at high speed.
Today, another.
I was cruising the frontage road looking for a mechanic’s shop. Rather sobering, considering how many people I passed on foot or riding bicycles, not to mention the thought of a car flying off the highway into your vehicle.
What’s also interesting is how close this is to the crash in 2012.
And the speed limit? Close as I can tell, 60 km/hr (36 mph). Maybe 90 (54). Either is clearly considerably less than this car was traveling.
My drive to Montevideo in one minute
For anyone who has dealt with driving in Uruguay, there is nothing here particularly unusual: a pedestrian wandering into a highway, curious interpretations of the meanings of those lines in the road, red lights that don’t apply to city buses.
Close call
The best rule for driving in Uruguay is to try to watch every person and vehicle — pedestrians, bicyclists, motos, and other cars and trucks, constantly imagine the stupidest thing they could do — step into traffic, swerve in front of you without notice, run stop and yield signs — and plan for it.
In this case, I might have been distracted by the conversation and so didn’t see the approaching out the side window. Fortunately, the passenger’s field of view allowed her to see it before it cleared the A-column for my view, and warn me. Locals will recognize the voice 😉
When we bought this vehicle in 2010, the blind spot was one of the more pronounced criticisms I could find online.
The triangle caused by the A-pillar split should be helpful, but since my eye level is near the top, it provides no help. Still, I have most often had problems with the passenger side, so perhaps I had a lapse of attention.
Which — when driving in Uruguay — can prove expensive, dangerous, or worse, as perhaps you can imagine.
Drive UY — more dash cam fun!
Es lo que hay (it is what it is)
Drive UY: those pesky lines
“And no, everybody knows what to do in a rond [sic] about and everybody knows that you must use only one lane.” This comes from a comment on this post. Amongst the numerous examples I will show that the second half of this statement is false, I did go through the airport roundabout on this trip without someone turning right from the left lane. However, inevitably it will happen again and I’ll get it on video 😉
Drive UY – 30 seconds
Oopa
This might have just happened this morning. A few minutes earlier an ambulance calmly went by with its lights flashing. Head hit windshield (doesn’t show in this photo).
The story? Would make a good assignment for a writers’ workshop.