Panama Traffic

I would like to take a moment to talk about Panama traffic.  We, fortunately, don’t have to deal with too much traffic due our location.  I have easy access to the highway from our place to get to school, and we typically walk everywhere during rush hour or when we go out at night.  We are lucky, however, to have a great view of traffic, and it is pretty comical at times. 

On the first and fifteenth of every month, all of Panama gets paid.  Panamanians tend to live paycheck to paycheck.  This is really awesome for us on the 27^th/28^th-ish and 12^th/13^th-ish because no one (well, just not as many people) is on the road or in the stores, because everyone has run out of money.  Payday, however, is a whole different situation.  The roads and grocery stores are crazy. 

Notice the cars on the right from bottom to top, and also the upper right hand corner....they are all going toward the grocery store and the bank.

It took our friends over an hour to get to our place the other night when they live less than ten minutes away.  You're thinking, "Why didn't they just walk?" That's another story in itself...

 

 

It's great that we can enjoy the view and not have to sit in the terrible traffic full of crazy drivers. 

 

 

We see and/or hear accidents on a daily basis...

 

 

 

The problem with accidents around here is that people are required to stay in the exact spot, no matter the amount of damage, in which the accident occurred, until the insurance agent is contacted...or comes to the scene...not really sure.  All I know is, this happened right as I was coming home from school (we had to maneuver around it up on the curb...totally normal), and this picture was taken about 2 hours later.  I think traffic would be half as bad if people would just get the f*** out of the way. 

 

If I had to deal with this every day, I would totally get to the point of doing this:

 

 



I mean, why would you wait when there are 4 lanes flowing perfectly next to you?  That median means nothing anyway...

 

We drove to Santa Catalina a couple weekends ago.  It was our first three-day weekend so we left at 6:30am Friday morning.  Luckily, we were driving against rush- hour.  There is a four lane highway, two lanes in each direction, that goes over the Bridge of Americas.  Many people come into the city for work, so they like to switch up the lanes during heavy traffic times.

 

 





 

Just a cone or two separate us from oncoming traffic.  Again, totally normal.  And yes, we totally sport a Panamanian flag.  We feel it will help our cause if/when we get pulled over.  Bound to happen sooner or later. 

 

When we first arrived, we noticed people really like their hazard lights here.  They put their hazards on for all kinds of things, but mostly for no apparent reason at all.  It wasn't until we started to get some real legit rain that we realized the importance of the hazards. The only way to see anyone when it rains here is to look for flashing lights.  Sometimes you come across the crappy taxi cabs that don't have any functional lights at all.  That's another time when you just want them to get the f*** off the road. 

 

 

I don't know that Panama traffic is any worse than Seattle or the Bay Area, but it is definitely crazier.  Everything (well, not everything) you wish you could do in the states when you're at the tip of your patience in traffic is typically done here.  Many people follow the rules, but it only takes a few to open the doors to chaos.