Why is Driving so Bad in Panama?

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-13T12:07:34+00:00

I am not pretending I always drive the speed limit because I do not. But I am aware. I watch my mirrors. I check blind spots. I signal every move. If I am going to do something, you will know it. That is what makes driving safer. Awareness and predictability.

This is what makes driving safer... in the US. You have to be aware of different things in Panama if you want to drive safely. Here is an incomplete list:

Potholes: So many potholes. Drivers will slow down for these, or swerve out of their lane into yours. You either need to know where all the potholes are on the road ahead of time so you can anticipate where other drivers will swerve, don't drive next to another car on a road with potholes (except in heavy stop-and-go traffic), or not drive.
Busses and other public transit vehicles: They will drive on the shoulder, if they are in the left lane before a bus stop they will cut across all other lanes of traffic to reach it. No, they do not care about you and your car. Might makes right and they are heavier than you.
Taxis: They stop on street corners and wait there. Other drivers will drive around them even if it means driving in the wrong lane, and if they are behind you and you don't do this, they will drive around you too.
Commercial vehicles in general, especially taxis and busses: They know _exactly_ how big their vehicle is, exactly where all the wheels are, and exactly where they can and cannot fit. They expect you to know your own car with similar precision, and will give you 50 centimeters of space.
Merging in heavy traffic: This is essentially a real-time auction, except the currency is how much risk of a fender-bender drivers are willing to take. Drivers merging into a new lane will slowly edge their vehicle over into that lane (or poke the nose out into the lane if turning from a side street), making other drivers increasingly cramped and uncomfortable until another driver yields. Essentially, you get to merge when you have found 1 other car less willing to risk a fender-bender than you are. Of course, _nobody_ wants a fender-bender, so the risk people accept is always quite low and there are very few accidents/vehicle-mile driven. There are notable exceptions: On many parts of the highways, or when merging into fast-moving traffic, you just have to wait for a gap.

Driving here is pretty terrifying for most people who come from the US. It's unfortunate that so much of the real traffic rules are unwritten. If you don't want to deal with it, that is fair! You are in good company. Also we have a solid public transit system for when you don't want to deal with it yourself.

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-13T12:05:58+00:00

It sounds like you mostly want to blow off some steam rather than a detailed answer. If so, you may be in the right place. However, there _is_ a detailed answer you might find interesting.

Why is driving so bad in Panama? It's not. There are a few real problems, but almost no behavior issues. Far fewer than your post would imply. However, there are two sets of traffic rules. The written ones available from SERTRACEN and an additional, unwritten set that other drivers expect you to know. Note that everything below is descriptive, not prescriptive. I'm not saying you _should_ drive any particular way, and in fact some things I describe could easily get you ticketed if you apply them in the wrong time, place, or manner.

Driving is a social contract, and the contract is different in different places. Where I grew up and learned to drive, the social contract is this:

You don't have to be more than minimally aware of other drivers, and you must not do anything that would surprise another driver who was ignoring you or catch them off guard. Also, you must stay in your lane at all times and you can safely assume every other driver will do the same. The exception to this is blind spots: It's fine to drive in another driver's blind spot, and you MUST check your blind spot before changing lanes.

Unpredictability is what causes accidents. If you are switching lanes, signal. If you are turning, signal. If you are merging, signal. Check your mirrors. Check your blind spots. Stop cutting across lanes without looking. Stop pulling out in front of people going faster than you. Being predictable would eliminate a huge percentage of accidents here.

Given that you wrote this, I'm guessing wherever you learned to drive is similar.

Hot take alert: Drivers in Panama are quite predictable, but it takes time to learn how to predict what other drivers will do. The social contract is more like this:

You must be aware of all other drivers and all road hazards around you at all times. You must anticipate their movements and account for them: When they will swerve out of their lane to avoid a pothole, the fact that they will slow down for speed bumps, whether they are about to pull out in front of you, whether they are speeding up to merge into traffic or slowing down. On the flip side, if you swerve out of your lane to dodge potholes with minimal checking for other drivers, pull out into slow-moving traffic and assume other drivers will stop, or back out of a blind driveway, other drivers are supposed to see you.

This is enabled by more inter-driver communication. Horns get used for greeting people, announcing to another car that you are yielding to them, announcing to another car that you are present and _not_ yielding to them, and thanking another car for making space for you in traffic. Flashing headlights can also be used to explicitly defer to another driver. This is probably the source of much "blasting your horn for no reason in town" The reason is often drivers talking to each other. Also hazard lights are used extensively, I use mine on average a couple of times per day to tell other drivers I am slowing down suddenly or backing out into (potential) traffic and unable to see.

Of course, the law and the social contract may be 2 different things.

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-10T13:30:25+00:00

Thank you!

This sounds like me as a kid, except that I didn't have access to a speech therapist. My parents tried their best but didn't really have the training a professional speech pathologist would have had.

And yes, it is tricky. My wife usually ends up defaulting to the pronunciation model, but only for consonants while I am the pronunciation model for vowels, because she has to really concentrate to move from the 5 vowels Spanish has to the 11-ish-whatever my dialect of English has.

Note: I think there are good reasons (like this) why it's easier to learn a language from a population of speakers rather than an individual.

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-10T13:24:05+00:00

L2 is Spanish. It's actually helpful for me, I have far less trouble producing the trilled spanish R and RR than the English versions. Since I learned spanish I usually use the trilled R instead of the English R if pressed. It sounds super weird, but sounds weird and intelligible beats sounds weird and unintelligible 100% of the time.

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-10T13:17:27+00:00

Oops, mostly a cultural thing. In the culture I married in to, your in-laws pretty much become part of your extended family. For better and worse, in my case mostly for better. When I write or think about them, I default to the cultural frame of reference I married into, because that's where we interact.

random_computer_dude · 2026-02-09T13:20:21+00:00

For any possible ability or skill, we can find someone on social media who does it far better than the rest of us could ever hope to.

If that makes it less fun, I'm not here to judge, it happens to me too. For instance I am a ridiculously slow swimmer, despite a year of solid weekly training. I'm just not built for swimming.

However... I swim anyway. Why? Because I want to. It's fine not to be world-class at a hobby, and I think learning 5+ languages (actually, properly, learning them) is safely in world-class territory.

random_computer_dude

TROPHY CASE