Who the FUCK gives these people a license...OH WAIT, its Mexico!

[flood]

*Originally posted by ñañi *
**Here is a brakdown of Mexican drivers, taken from my personal experience of seeing drivers from the following areas of Mexico:

Monterrey
Mexico
Guanajuato/Leon
Chihuahua
Cancun/Quintana Roo
Chiapas
Baja
Acapulco
Vera Cruz
and others I can’t remember
**

I see that you didnt mention Nuevo Laredo or any part of Tamualipas for that matter. Therein lies the route of the bad wrap that Mexicans get for driving (around here anyway).

[flood]

oops. route is supposed to be root. sorry

[flood]

*Originally posted by Kyla *
**
I have Mexican cousins. One is very close in age to me. When she went to get her driver’s license in Mexico City, she and my aunt brought the DMV (or whatever the Mexican equivalent is) officials wine and cheese. They told them it wasn’t enough. So they left, got more wine and cheese, returned, and my cousin was given her driver’s license. I’m not even sure if she could have taken a test. From the way they told me this, it didn’t really sound like a viable option. Bribery was the only way.
**

To change the subject a bit, the bribery of Mexican officials is widely known around here. Several people I know have been stopped across by the police for minor traffic infractions. Theyre relentless over there. The only way to keep from getting thrown into jail (which you never, ever, under any circumstances want to do over there) is to slip the officer a 20. So it doesnt surprise me when i see such shitty drivers here, but it is awfully annoying.

[China_Guy]

*Originally posted by Tapioca Dextrin *
**I can’t help noticing that everyone here is assuming is implying that bad driving is always the fault of the other guy - especially if the other guy is a foreign national. My roomate has exactly the same rant - except it is about women drivers.

Am I making a point here? Yes. Whenever we (and that includes me) see, for example, bad driving, we feel a need to blame a whole section of society, not just the individual. Now, if the driver of the offending vehicle happens to identifiable (Mexican plates, an SUV, a woman, old, whatever), we have a winner! All school buses/mail trucks or wahtever are bad.

On the flipside, when we see the exactly the same manoveur carried out by one of our own, we blank it out. If you’re a guy and you see a woman drive in a hare-barined fashion, it’s easy to say “Stupid women drivers”, but if a guy does exactly the same thing, we do not even register it and certainly dan’t say “Gosh aren’t men such bad drivers”

So let’s not call Mexicans bad drivers, because that way lies FeistyMongel **

You said this much more eloquently than I tried to do.

Yep, I think that talking in general about the driving level in Mexico and personal ancedotes about it is pretty interesting. However, from there to “Mexican” drivers as a race of genetically disposed bad drivers is crossing a line in my mind. I mean, Lebanon (randomly picked country to make a point) is supposed to have pretty messed up traffic, but I don’t hear people blanketly calling out “dang Lebanese drivers” or anything when they get cut off. Driving standards in China are horrific, but I’m careful to talk about driving standards in China rather than a blanket “Chinese drivers”