The plates have been wiped to protect the innocent..
(Pic. Bad streets) …If you come to Mexico and you are the first time on the roads with an American car and drive the first time on Mexican roads you are completely stressed. First of all because of the bad quality of the roads that sometimes you think; “I have lost my complete engine or at least ripped open my gear box”. The highways in Monterrey are good to normal but the streets in the ‘barrios’ or suburbs are the worst and need a lot of attention to drive without damaging your car. Most of the streets are so bad that wholes in the street and unpaved parts of the street make your car drive like a “jeep” in the mountains, and literally you make your way true the streets jumping. At the place of my mother in law for example the streets are so bad that I sometimes got stuck with my DODGE in a pit. I mean with a truck this would not happen, the reason why a lot of people choose for a truck in this country. However with a small European, Japanese or even American car which is becoming more common nowadays, these has a low “cardan”, and you have to watch very carefully and check the roads so good, that zigzagging your way true is sometimes unavoidable to reach your destiny. In some cases even a “street lid” is missing, because the night before it had rain so sever that the “street lid” came up and lost, the reason that most of the “street lid” are implemented in the cement of the road, unfortunately not all, and it can happen that you lose your transmission during driving if you not watch out..
(Pic. Bicycle Driver) …The condition of the streets is not the only thing that you have to worry about during driving; also the people that are participating on the roads should be carefully watched during your drive. You need all your mirrors to stay ahead and without collision others because the most people make moves you do not expect that could be made and with this I am not only referring to the other car-drivers although they are in the majority and needs to be checked all the time. No also the biker’s, although they are few, that pushes their way true the streets are very much unprotected and most of the drivers I have seen, are not stopping for any pedestrians or bikers at all, makes especially these kinds of road-users very vulnerable for traffic in this town and especially on these roads. There is no nice section for bikers on the roads like in Holland and road signs are not always nicely visible due to lack of maintenance or even money and this makes the “zebra crossings” almost invisible not only for drivers but also for the pedestrian itself. However in case you are in your right as a pedestrian and walking on a secure “zebra crossings” it can happen that cars are not giving you the priority and drive almost over you which happened to me together with my child by a taxi driver, during our crossing of the street in the suburbs.
I mean the streets are awful to cross all the time, but when you have to cross a street you expect some respect by at least a taxi driver you think he should have at least an official drivers license and experience and learned that unprotected pedestrians should be protected when crossing a street on a “zebra crossings” even when the roads are free, by stopping. No… they are just driving over you like the white car in the picture almost drives over the poor guy that is crossing the street. If you do not watch out carefully, you can end up in hospital, so avoid crossing a street unattended, or do it very carefully, even in places where you think this is not necessary. Otherwise you end up injured or with a joke like: “Ah, sorry... did I almost have you and your child as a trophy on my water cooler”, which happened to me. :P
(Pic. Corner Parking) …Second of all, the rules you learned in your country you can completely forget, because most of the rules are not counting here and second they have as many traffic signs as they have bicycle roads, so this means not that many. And most important rule is the once that are made by others, because also here and just like in Holland, the biggest “ASO” has the biggest truck, and makes his own rules.
(Pic. Corner Parking) … Like the neighborhood I am living, there are some shops and they need to be provided. In the whole street there is a sign of no parking and especially no 25 ton trucks like this, but there is always an exception as you can see. And this is not the worst case, although this is parked on the corner of a street and the car in front driving into it cannot see anything to avoid a crash, there is another small car parked on the exact corner in front of this truck, makes it even worst!!
I stopped especially to make this picture just to show you how awful this situation is and how much visibility you have to go to the right because it’s just luck if there is nobody coming and driving 60 KM/h… I mean I have seen trucks parking or crossing streets that I thought; “Oh my God, this can not be possible, I mean the event of the truck that crossed a complete city ring to get on the other site of the road and everybody had to go into the breaks. On the other hand it tells something about how skilled these drivers must be and how flexible you must be here in Mexico to be a truck driver, I mean to get a truck like this in the street were this truck is parked you need a lot of patience and driving skills to get it like this.
(Pic. 90 degrees turn from second lane) Anyhow a lot of accidents are happening just because of these trucks here in Mexico, so be careful and take distance to avoid them if you are driving on the roads. It can happen that for example at corners a truck takes the second or even third lane and makes a complete turn of 90 degrees in front of you without any warning of traffic lights or direction lights. Happens to me once…
(Pic. Crossing Red Light Right)… The rule here is that it is the survivor of the fittest sometimes (or macho culture) and best driver contest in the streets, all the time.
All these reckless drivers however forgetting one thing in particular, they bring not only themselves in danger but also others that are not intended to do harm but try to survive in this traffic-jungle. For example, right is not having always priority and a red light does not always mean you have to stop, and of course also here counts, daily but not all the time, that you have to violate the traffic rules to not get injured and to bring your family safe to the place to be; or at least I am trying not to violate rules, but in some scenarios you need to, otherwise I would already crashed my car a thousand times. Especially the speeding limit, I already catched once just for speeding to avoid a crash and to stay ahead of a Jetta that got free, I got caught, 1 for the Jetta and 0 for me. If Mexico would have the Dutch traffic rules and they would catch me how I am driving now, I would already lose my drivers license in a day, here they using different rules and some of them are very strange and most of them are very dangerous. Actually to drive in Monterrey you need to be an expert in driving or a lucky fool that lost his mind, to drive without any accidents or the so called “just not collisions”. On the other hand it seems that although everything seems different and more dangerous, I see not often accidents, so maybe I am mistaken, or I am lucky that I did not see them, because most of the time if accidents happen, they are deadly. However the dead toll is very low as Mexican news paper tell and should be around 1 % of the Mexican population of 52 million people, for the whole country. If you count that together, it is still around 520.000 dead people by car-accidents or not? And half of these car accidents are caused by to many alcohol or drugs as they report. Hmm very strange way of making analysis..
(Pic. Plane Waste Land) …First of all I have to tell you that there are no driving schools in Monterrey or Mexico at all. Maybe they are, but not in the way we know them in The Netherlands, here they make a couple circles on a plain waste land, get instructed from there father (that was instructed by his father or grandfather) make some turns and that’s it. Sometimes they hire an expert, but this is for the worst cases. Anyhow or the Mexicans are born formula one pilots or they have the skill to drive anything they can use for transport, fact is that some of them do not even know the traffic signs on the roads, at least here is no school or examination that learns you or questions you about it. On the other hand I do not see that many
(Pic. Crossings blocked when light in front of you is green) signs here also; maybe they do not need that much as we have in The Netherlands. Here you go to the office for driver licenses, they ask you if you can drive (you say yes or course), then they ask you if you can ignition a car that is standing there (sometimes this is even not asked) and then you may go inside to make a picture and get your drivers license after you paid (450 pesos) of course. God bless you and the rest of the people that are with you on the streets. On the other hand this is nice and easy and you can start you experience on the road, if you do not make to much accidents or get killed after your first speeding accident, nothing is wrong with this system. One thing is for sure the speed limit is very low here and you are driving in the surrounding of cities not more then 50 KM/h average all the time. On the other hand you see daily a lot of very dangerous situations. So dangerous that you should question this kind of system, if it is right or if it is wrong?
…Some examples of my daily tour and some dangerous situations on picture…
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) ...This one I call ZIP SPORTS: Zipping (“ritsen” as we call it) on the ultimate last moment is a sport here it seems in Mexico…
Sometimes they are even taking the last meter that is a triangle with curbs, to push themselves into the line. Here a nice example of how it should not be done… The red car in front of me does not have the lights to go to the left although it is an outlet to take the turn around via the bridge. The black car turning to the right is already making the mistake because it’s pushing its way into the right … all cars behind him have to go full in the brakes as you can see with the silver station car on the right in front of me…
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) …Just a couple of meters before the split, the red car is going to the right, again without any lights. Something you see almost all the time that they are not using their direction lights for left or right. The other thing is that they do not have a “APK” here in Mexico so half of the lights are never working even the new cars do not have the full light “security” working correctly.
…So it is guessing what they want and where they want to go too. The reason there is nobody behind this red car is that next to me was a big truck that spreads his way for both lanes, but this is just out of this picture, unfortunately. It happened to me that in this kind of situation somebody completely pushed me from the road because they are not making a sign to go to the right and then suddenly turn right without taking any notice that you are next to them or even on the priority lane. His lane was blocked by a traffic post and without any stopping just turned right and almost crashed me. I had to brake (but full and hope that nothing behind you crashes you) or you have to pull you car to the right, hoping there is nobody next to you on the right. Anyhow I was lucky.
(Pic. Corner Parking) …Parking at dangerous corners, is a favorite in Mexico. Especially in the ‘barrios’ or suburbs were not much control of police is and they are parking cars there frequently. The reason is that nobody wants to park the car somewhere else and walk a couple of meters, sometimes, because they have already so much cars in the streets that they just park it there were nobody normally parks the car. However they are not realizing that they are bringing other participants of the street in danger this way and even pedestrians are not able to cross streets this way. As you can see the second truck is parked directly behind this blue truck and actually to his bumper. Most of the time (although there is a yellow line on all the corners) the police is not undertaking anything. I came 8 weeks ago to Mexico and the car is still parked there, just for the reason it broke down.
(Pic. Taxi Pickup) …Very dangerous and even not keeping the rules in mind are the taxi drivers. In the middle of the street they stop no matter what, because they do not want to lose a transport. In this case I wanted to picture the outlet and the truck that was doing the turn to the right from the second lane far in front of this picture, but got this lucky shot in front of me with a driver behind the taxi that had to go full in the brakes, otherwise the car would have crashed the taxi. The crash would not only be bad for the taxi driver and the car behind him but also for the passengers that wanted to step into the car, which you see not, because they are just trying to open the door to step inside. So good advise do not use taxis this way or keep distance when a taxi is in front of you, because you never know what the taxi driver is going to do. If they see a transport they stop no matter what and most of the time they are not having their eyes on the road behind or in front of them but only on pedestrians that could be a transport. They stop no matter what is behind them and they do not look behind them, before they stop.
(Pic. Buss Stop without Warning)…Very dangerous and even reckless are the way some busses using their big enormous size to stop on the roads and be a very dangerous road-block. This happens by the way every morning and for drivers using this street a known situation, but for somebody new he/she could completely stuck between these busses, because once stopped behind these elephants you will never come out, because both lanes on the left are 60 KM/h speed lanes and here they are always driving 70 or more…There is no sign nothing, even the bus driver at the last is only using his brake lights, no warning lights, if you are lucky and you have space and can avoid these monsters on wheels on time, you are lucky, if not it can end also fatal. The reason why all the busses are stopping here every morning is that they have to fill up gasoline at the gas station half a mile ahead. So if this is a repeating and daily issue you would think; “why nobody made a warning sign here?” you should keep in mind that busses are parked, no nada…no signs.
(Pic. Ignoring red lights - on right) … Because nobody respects the red light on the right side to make a right turn and nobody knows how to line up his car because of the missing street signs, you get a race at the finish situation like you see on this picture and everybody wants his rights and does not want to give the other a priority. It’s green for me and the others behind me, but everybody even the ones that have red light run to go to the street that they want to go. Causing especially in the morning and evening a major traffic jam and line up of cars that are not able to respect each other. Even on my right site (not visible) during the making of this picture a green bus was trying to push me from my road to get the finish and pass true this small street. The bus was not even on the correct line to enter this street, but these things are happening every morning and every evening the same way. In this case the bus drivers are even the worst, because they also picking up people just at the corner of the street which makes waiting for the others behind them a daunting task if you are in the middle of the street stopping for a bus that is 600 meters away from you, it’s even worst and very dangerous, especially when the traffic light is just set to 2 minutes. The horns are almost used everyday here on that part and very loud. I hear them every morning bringing Rafael to school, because this is a block or 4 away from my house.
(Pic. Ignoring One-Way Traffic) … Against the direction driving in an “one-way traffic” street is very normal and common in Monterrey. Especially in the suburbs were most of the streets are 1 road up in one direction and 1 road done in one direction. However not everybody is respecting this rule as you can see, because people are too lazy to drive around. What I noticed is especially taxi drivers and people from public service are doing this more frequent then others, maybe saving some gasoline this way? I do not know, they are not only endangering the people they transport but also the other traffic users, again a bad habit of these road users, although it is their daily living it’s a risk some taxi drivers take to save some money or fasten their daily income. I think this should change; it is not a good sign to foreigners and travelers, although it happens daily. Even today I was walking in a street and saw an old woman (handicap) pushing herself out of a taxi, the taxi driver was not even helping, he did not care. He was just waiting till the woman left and paid. I mean some people in Holland would already call the “taxi central” to complain, but this is not possible here, because most of the time the taxi’s are not registered and if complains are coming they don’t care, so the attitude does not change neither. And if complains are done they are ending up into a traffic of burocracy that nobody wants and is waiting for.
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) …Anyhow you think why I showing you all this, in The Netherlands it’s daily the same and people ignoring the rules daily everywhere, also in Holland. Yes that is correct, I only showing you that it can be in other countries even worst. The only thing and that is the reason why I wanted to tell this story is that nobody bothers, and nobody cares.
If a dead toll of 520.000 people yearly would be given in The Netherlands every year a revolte among the people would grow to ask the government to do something but here, nothing, nobody complains. Here in Mexico, the public streets are government business, however the road is a public transport; everyone that can drive a car can use it without limitations and without losing a complete month salary to pay it. In the Netherlands I paid a complete month salary for all my drivers’ lessons, and another month salary for the extra’s I had to pay for the “theory and “final exam”. Then we pay a lot of road taxes and car insurances per month and all other shit that actually is not needed like “rotary intersections” and “thresholds” and I can continue with this for months, but in Holland they make the roads like a rollercoaster sometimes, instead of a normal road. Here the roads are in a super bad condition, bud nobody really complains, and why? They do not have to pay for it to use it neither. And the taxes and tickets that they have to pay are ignored by most of the drivers because they know if they do NOT pay they get reduction after a couple of years. If you pay immediately you get reductioon too. Strange thinking but fair.
But no matter what they say it still keeps being alarmed all the time to check the roads during you’re driving over here, you have to do the same in Holland. Most of the time it are the foreigners that makes the mistakes and make the accidents I heard last time, because here the Mexican car driver is understanding each other, even when they are making mistakes and pushing you to the left or right, they understand and respect., because they know, we learned it from our father like the other learned it from his father and so on. A family business all the road long…and families are respected here in Mexico that’s for sure… You have to see it as the “bots-autootjes” in Holland, nobody can drive actually and is bumping to each other, but nothing really dangerous happens, only “bodywork damage” and everybody is laughing and having a good time … They forgetting actually one thing and that is that the cars are growing and getting more and more dangerous every day and that people are not completely paying attention to the driving anymore, it’s like a child that the first time starts to walk, they fall all over and over again till they can walk. But if millions try this everyday and on the same spot and without any help, they will never learn to walk and maybe get injured or worst in time.
(Pic. Corner Parking)…At least for the Mexicans, I do not enjoy it, everyday I am on the streets and anger myself a lot about the behavior of some taxi-drivers, truck-drivers, bus-drivers and some car-drivers that I think this should be different and could be better. I mean if you see a mother of four children, and a baby in the arms, driving a car and all the children are not sitting in a chair belted and the baby is hanging on a tit to drink milk, and the oldest is hanging outside the window, the other over the dashboard and the other two are painting the back window of the car from the inside and the mother is calling during the drive, I think it’s time for action in this country. I did not have the camera with me but be sure I am going to make a picture of it because this is almost daily business here in Monterrey.
(Pic. NO Hands Free Call) …In cars the most favorite one in Mexico and of course not hands free, they do not even know what it means, I think. I saw a woman with child, giving the breast to a baby, no belts both and she was talking on the phone during the driving in a Volkswagen Kever. I mean pregnant, and having already a baby in the hands during driving is of course already very irresponsible however, you could ask yourself what else these women can do at the same time, when they are not driving. …Never thought about that, hahaha…
(Pic. Dangerous Zones) …And yes I almost forgot one. What are you thinking this girl is selling, next to the busiest auto highway of Monterrey? Yes she is selling not only herself to attract people, but also tries to attract man to buy beer, the so called “servesa chicas” as I call them. Yes this is a beer station where you do not buy gasoline, but only BEER!!! And in front are waiting nice girls that animate, chat and SMS by phone, to come and buy beer here. I think this would be a runner in Holland, only with the cold weather all the year in Holland it would lost his affect in Holland by the dress the poor girls have to wear, because then they should sell maybe hot chocolate or coffee, instead of beer, which I think would not be a runner anymore… Or maybe I am mistaken? So business man in Holland this one is for free, the next tip you pay ;)
(Pic. Bad streets) …If you come to Mexico and you are the first time on the roads with an American car and drive the first time on Mexican roads you are completely stressed. First of all because of the bad quality of the roads that sometimes you think; “I have lost my complete engine or at least ripped open my gear box”. The highways in Monterrey are good to normal but the streets in the ‘barrios’ or suburbs are the worst and need a lot of attention to drive without damaging your car. Most of the streets are so bad that wholes in the street and unpaved parts of the street make your car drive like a “jeep” in the mountains, and literally you make your way true the streets jumping. At the place of my mother in law for example the streets are so bad that I sometimes got stuck with my DODGE in a pit. I mean with a truck this would not happen, the reason why a lot of people choose for a truck in this country. However with a small European, Japanese or even American car which is becoming more common nowadays, these has a low “cardan”, and you have to watch very carefully and check the roads so good, that zigzagging your way true is sometimes unavoidable to reach your destiny. In some cases even a “street lid” is missing, because the night before it had rain so sever that the “street lid” came up and lost, the reason that most of the “street lid” are implemented in the cement of the road, unfortunately not all, and it can happen that you lose your transmission during driving if you not watch out..
(Pic. Bicycle Driver) …The condition of the streets is not the only thing that you have to worry about during driving; also the people that are participating on the roads should be carefully watched during your drive. You need all your mirrors to stay ahead and without collision others because the most people make moves you do not expect that could be made and with this I am not only referring to the other car-drivers although they are in the majority and needs to be checked all the time. No also the biker’s, although they are few, that pushes their way true the streets are very much unprotected and most of the drivers I have seen, are not stopping for any pedestrians or bikers at all, makes especially these kinds of road-users very vulnerable for traffic in this town and especially on these roads. There is no nice section for bikers on the roads like in Holland and road signs are not always nicely visible due to lack of maintenance or even money and this makes the “zebra crossings” almost invisible not only for drivers but also for the pedestrian itself. However in case you are in your right as a pedestrian and walking on a secure “zebra crossings” it can happen that cars are not giving you the priority and drive almost over you which happened to me together with my child by a taxi driver, during our crossing of the street in the suburbs. 
I mean the streets are awful to cross all the time, but when you have to cross a street you expect some respect by at least a taxi driver you think he should have at least an official drivers license and experience and learned that unprotected pedestrians should be protected when crossing a street on a “zebra crossings” even when the roads are free, by stopping. No… they are just driving over you like the white car in the picture almost drives over the poor guy that is crossing the street. If you do not watch out carefully, you can end up in hospital, so avoid crossing a street unattended, or do it very carefully, even in places where you think this is not necessary. Otherwise you end up injured or with a joke like: “Ah, sorry... did I almost have you and your child as a trophy on my water cooler”, which happened to me. :P
(Pic. Corner Parking) …Second of all, the rules you learned in your country you can completely forget, because most of the rules are not counting here and second they have as many traffic signs as they have bicycle roads, so this means not that many. And most important rule is the once that are made by others, because also here and just like in Holland, the biggest “ASO” has the biggest truck, and makes his own rules.
(Pic. Corner Parking) … Like the neighborhood I am living, there are some shops and they need to be provided. In the whole street there is a sign of no parking and especially no 25 ton trucks like this, but there is always an exception as you can see. And this is not the worst case, although this is parked on the corner of a street and the car in front driving into it cannot see anything to avoid a crash, there is another small car parked on the exact corner in front of this truck, makes it even worst!! I stopped especially to make this picture just to show you how awful this situation is and how much visibility you have to go to the right because it’s just luck if there is nobody coming and driving 60 KM/h… I mean I have seen trucks parking or crossing streets that I thought; “Oh my God, this can not be possible, I mean the event of the truck that crossed a complete city ring to get on the other site of the road and everybody had to go into the breaks. On the other hand it tells something about how skilled these drivers must be and how flexible you must be here in Mexico to be a truck driver, I mean to get a truck like this in the street were this truck is parked you need a lot of patience and driving skills to get it like this.
(Pic. 90 degrees turn from second lane) Anyhow a lot of accidents are happening just because of these trucks here in Mexico, so be careful and take distance to avoid them if you are driving on the roads. It can happen that for example at corners a truck takes the second or even third lane and makes a complete turn of 90 degrees in front of you without any warning of traffic lights or direction lights. Happens to me once…
(Pic. Crossing Red Light Right)… The rule here is that it is the survivor of the fittest sometimes (or macho culture) and best driver contest in the streets, all the time.All these reckless drivers however forgetting one thing in particular, they bring not only themselves in danger but also others that are not intended to do harm but try to survive in this traffic-jungle. For example, right is not having always priority and a red light does not always mean you have to stop, and of course also here counts, daily but not all the time, that you have to violate the traffic rules to not get injured and to bring your family safe to the place to be; or at least I am trying not to violate rules, but in some scenarios you need to, otherwise I would already crashed my car a thousand times. Especially the speeding limit, I already catched once just for speeding to avoid a crash and to stay ahead of a Jetta that got free, I got caught, 1 for the Jetta and 0 for me. If Mexico would have the Dutch traffic rules and they would catch me how I am driving now, I would already lose my drivers license in a day, here they using different rules and some of them are very strange and most of them are very dangerous. Actually to drive in Monterrey you need to be an expert in driving or a lucky fool that lost his mind, to drive without any accidents or the so called “just not collisions”. On the other hand it seems that although everything seems different and more dangerous, I see not often accidents, so maybe I am mistaken, or I am lucky that I did not see them, because most of the time if accidents happen, they are deadly. However the dead toll is very low as Mexican news paper tell and should be around 1 % of the Mexican population of 52 million people, for the whole country. If you count that together, it is still around 520.000 dead people by car-accidents or not? And half of these car accidents are caused by to many alcohol or drugs as they report. Hmm very strange way of making analysis..
(Pic. Plane Waste Land) …First of all I have to tell you that there are no driving schools in Monterrey or Mexico at all. Maybe they are, but not in the way we know them in The Netherlands, here they make a couple circles on a plain waste land, get instructed from there father (that was instructed by his father or grandfather) make some turns and that’s it. Sometimes they hire an expert, but this is for the worst cases. Anyhow or the Mexicans are born formula one pilots or they have the skill to drive anything they can use for transport, fact is that some of them do not even know the traffic signs on the roads, at least here is no school or examination that learns you or questions you about it. On the other hand I do not see that many 
(Pic. Crossings blocked when light in front of you is green) signs here also; maybe they do not need that much as we have in The Netherlands. Here you go to the office for driver licenses, they ask you if you can drive (you say yes or course), then they ask you if you can ignition a car that is standing there (sometimes this is even not asked) and then you may go inside to make a picture and get your drivers license after you paid (450 pesos) of course. God bless you and the rest of the people that are with you on the streets. On the other hand this is nice and easy and you can start you experience on the road, if you do not make to much accidents or get killed after your first speeding accident, nothing is wrong with this system. One thing is for sure the speed limit is very low here and you are driving in the surrounding of cities not more then 50 KM/h average all the time. On the other hand you see daily a lot of very dangerous situations. So dangerous that you should question this kind of system, if it is right or if it is wrong?…Some examples of my daily tour and some dangerous situations on picture…
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) ...This one I call ZIP SPORTS: Zipping (“ritsen” as we call it) on the ultimate last moment is a sport here it seems in Mexico… Sometimes they are even taking the last meter that is a triangle with curbs, to push themselves into the line. Here a nice example of how it should not be done… The red car in front of me does not have the lights to go to the left although it is an outlet to take the turn around via the bridge. The black car turning to the right is already making the mistake because it’s pushing its way into the right … all cars behind him have to go full in the brakes as you can see with the silver station car on the right in front of me…
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) …Just a couple of meters before the split, the red car is going to the right, again without any lights. Something you see almost all the time that they are not using their direction lights for left or right. The other thing is that they do not have a “APK” here in Mexico so half of the lights are never working even the new cars do not have the full light “security” working correctly.…So it is guessing what they want and where they want to go too. The reason there is nobody behind this red car is that next to me was a big truck that spreads his way for both lanes, but this is just out of this picture, unfortunately. It happened to me that in this kind of situation somebody completely pushed me from the road because they are not making a sign to go to the right and then suddenly turn right without taking any notice that you are next to them or even on the priority lane. His lane was blocked by a traffic post and without any stopping just turned right and almost crashed me. I had to brake (but full and hope that nothing behind you crashes you) or you have to pull you car to the right, hoping there is nobody next to you on the right. Anyhow I was lucky.
(Pic. Corner Parking) …Parking at dangerous corners, is a favorite in Mexico. Especially in the ‘barrios’ or suburbs were not much control of police is and they are parking cars there frequently. The reason is that nobody wants to park the car somewhere else and walk a couple of meters, sometimes, because they have already so much cars in the streets that they just park it there were nobody normally parks the car. However they are not realizing that they are bringing other participants of the street in danger this way and even pedestrians are not able to cross streets this way. As you can see the second truck is parked directly behind this blue truck and actually to his bumper. Most of the time (although there is a yellow line on all the corners) the police is not undertaking anything. I came 8 weeks ago to Mexico and the car is still parked there, just for the reason it broke down.
(Pic. Taxi Pickup) …Very dangerous and even not keeping the rules in mind are the taxi drivers. In the middle of the street they stop no matter what, because they do not want to lose a transport. In this case I wanted to picture the outlet and the truck that was doing the turn to the right from the second lane far in front of this picture, but got this lucky shot in front of me with a driver behind the taxi that had to go full in the brakes, otherwise the car would have crashed the taxi. The crash would not only be bad for the taxi driver and the car behind him but also for the passengers that wanted to step into the car, which you see not, because they are just trying to open the door to step inside. So good advise do not use taxis this way or keep distance when a taxi is in front of you, because you never know what the taxi driver is going to do. If they see a transport they stop no matter what and most of the time they are not having their eyes on the road behind or in front of them but only on pedestrians that could be a transport. They stop no matter what is behind them and they do not look behind them, before they stop.
(Pic. Buss Stop without Warning)…Very dangerous and even reckless are the way some busses using their big enormous size to stop on the roads and be a very dangerous road-block. This happens by the way every morning and for drivers using this street a known situation, but for somebody new he/she could completely stuck between these busses, because once stopped behind these elephants you will never come out, because both lanes on the left are 60 KM/h speed lanes and here they are always driving 70 or more…There is no sign nothing, even the bus driver at the last is only using his brake lights, no warning lights, if you are lucky and you have space and can avoid these monsters on wheels on time, you are lucky, if not it can end also fatal. The reason why all the busses are stopping here every morning is that they have to fill up gasoline at the gas station half a mile ahead. So if this is a repeating and daily issue you would think; “why nobody made a warning sign here?” you should keep in mind that busses are parked, no nada…no signs. 
(Pic. Ignoring red lights - on right) … Because nobody respects the red light on the right side to make a right turn and nobody knows how to line up his car because of the missing street signs, you get a race at the finish situation like you see on this picture and everybody wants his rights and does not want to give the other a priority. It’s green for me and the others behind me, but everybody even the ones that have red light run to go to the street that they want to go. Causing especially in the morning and evening a major traffic jam and line up of cars that are not able to respect each other. Even on my right site (not visible) during the making of this picture a green bus was trying to push me from my road to get the finish and pass true this small street. The bus was not even on the correct line to enter this street, but these things are happening every morning and every evening the same way. In this case the bus drivers are even the worst, because they also picking up people just at the corner of the street which makes waiting for the others behind them a daunting task if you are in the middle of the street stopping for a bus that is 600 meters away from you, it’s even worst and very dangerous, especially when the traffic light is just set to 2 minutes. The horns are almost used everyday here on that part and very loud. I hear them every morning bringing Rafael to school, because this is a block or 4 away from my house.
(Pic. Ignoring One-Way Traffic) … Against the direction driving in an “one-way traffic” street is very normal and common in Monterrey. Especially in the suburbs were most of the streets are 1 road up in one direction and 1 road done in one direction. However not everybody is respecting this rule as you can see, because people are too lazy to drive around. What I noticed is especially taxi drivers and people from public service are doing this more frequent then others, maybe saving some gasoline this way? I do not know, they are not only endangering the people they transport but also the other traffic users, again a bad habit of these road users, although it is their daily living it’s a risk some taxi drivers take to save some money or fasten their daily income. I think this should change; it is not a good sign to foreigners and travelers, although it happens daily. Even today I was walking in a street and saw an old woman (handicap) pushing herself out of a taxi, the taxi driver was not even helping, he did not care. He was just waiting till the woman left and paid. I mean some people in Holland would already call the “taxi central” to complain, but this is not possible here, because most of the time the taxi’s are not registered and if complains are coming they don’t care, so the attitude does not change neither. And if complains are done they are ending up into a traffic of burocracy that nobody wants and is waiting for. 
(Pic. Zipping Ignoring) …Anyhow you think why I showing you all this, in The Netherlands it’s daily the same and people ignoring the rules daily everywhere, also in Holland. Yes that is correct, I only showing you that it can be in other countries even worst. The only thing and that is the reason why I wanted to tell this story is that nobody bothers, and nobody cares.If a dead toll of 520.000 people yearly would be given in The Netherlands every year a revolte among the people would grow to ask the government to do something but here, nothing, nobody complains. Here in Mexico, the public streets are government business, however the road is a public transport; everyone that can drive a car can use it without limitations and without losing a complete month salary to pay it. In the Netherlands I paid a complete month salary for all my drivers’ lessons, and another month salary for the extra’s I had to pay for the “theory and “final exam”. Then we pay a lot of road taxes and car insurances per month and all other shit that actually is not needed like “rotary intersections” and “thresholds” and I can continue with this for months, but in Holland they make the roads like a rollercoaster sometimes, instead of a normal road. Here the roads are in a super bad condition, bud nobody really complains, and why? They do not have to pay for it to use it neither. And the taxes and tickets that they have to pay are ignored by most of the drivers because they know if they do NOT pay they get reduction after a couple of years. If you pay immediately you get reductioon too. Strange thinking but fair.
But no matter what they say it still keeps being alarmed all the time to check the roads during you’re driving over here, you have to do the same in Holland. Most of the time it are the foreigners that makes the mistakes and make the accidents I heard last time, because here the Mexican car driver is understanding each other, even when they are making mistakes and pushing you to the left or right, they understand and respect., because they know, we learned it from our father like the other learned it from his father and so on. A family business all the road long…and families are respected here in Mexico that’s for sure… You have to see it as the “bots-autootjes” in Holland, nobody can drive actually and is bumping to each other, but nothing really dangerous happens, only “bodywork damage” and everybody is laughing and having a good time … They forgetting actually one thing and that is that the cars are growing and getting more and more dangerous every day and that people are not completely paying attention to the driving anymore, it’s like a child that the first time starts to walk, they fall all over and over again till they can walk. But if millions try this everyday and on the same spot and without any help, they will never learn to walk and maybe get injured or worst in time.
(Pic. Corner Parking)…At least for the Mexicans, I do not enjoy it, everyday I am on the streets and anger myself a lot about the behavior of some taxi-drivers, truck-drivers, bus-drivers and some car-drivers that I think this should be different and could be better. I mean if you see a mother of four children, and a baby in the arms, driving a car and all the children are not sitting in a chair belted and the baby is hanging on a tit to drink milk, and the oldest is hanging outside the window, the other over the dashboard and the other two are painting the back window of the car from the inside and the mother is calling during the drive, I think it’s time for action in this country. I did not have the camera with me but be sure I am going to make a picture of it because this is almost daily business here in Monterrey.
(Pic. NO Hands Free Call) …In cars the most favorite one in Mexico and of course not hands free, they do not even know what it means, I think. I saw a woman with child, giving the breast to a baby, no belts both and she was talking on the phone during the driving in a Volkswagen Kever. I mean pregnant, and having already a baby in the hands during driving is of course already very irresponsible however, you could ask yourself what else these women can do at the same time, when they are not driving. …Never thought about that, hahaha…
(Pic. Dangerous Zones) …And yes I almost forgot one. What are you thinking this girl is selling, next to the busiest auto highway of Monterrey? Yes she is selling not only herself to attract people, but also tries to attract man to buy beer, the so called “servesa chicas” as I call them. Yes this is a beer station where you do not buy gasoline, but only BEER!!! And in front are waiting nice girls that animate, chat and SMS by phone, to come and buy beer here. I think this would be a runner in Holland, only with the cold weather all the year in Holland it would lost his affect in Holland by the dress the poor girls have to wear, because then they should sell maybe hot chocolate or coffee, instead of beer, which I think would not be a runner anymore… Or maybe I am mistaken? So business man in Holland this one is for free, the next tip you pay ;)
