Culture —– Safety in the Streets!
In the streets of Latin America there is one major thing you need to be aware of—pedestrians do not have the right of way. If a pedestrian walks across the street at a cross walk (2 solid parallel white lines) in the U.S., all vehicles must slow down to let the pedestrian cross. Most cross walks are at street lights or intersections with stop signs, but once in a while there are crosswalks in the middle of city blocks (far from any intersection). When people start to cross the street at the crosswalks, vehicles slow down to wait for them even without street lights to stop the cars. If pedestrians are in the streets in Latin America, not only do cars not slow down, they seem to go faster. If you see cross-walk type lines in Latin America, THEY ARE NOT CROSSWALKS, do not try to cross because cars will not slow down for you. You may not live to get to the other side of the street, which means you would never get to read anymore of our incredibly fascinating FREE Spanish culture newsletters! I want you to learn Spanish and Latin American culture.
Even though the streets are a lot more dangerous in Latin America, there are a lot more people who walk in the streets! Rather than just walking straight across the street like we do in the U.S., in Latin America when people cross the street, they usually walk diagonally until they are in the middle of the street. Then they will walk for awhile in the middle of the street as cars come whizzing by in both directions; finally when there’s a break in the traffic, they cross to the other side of the street.
You seem to be a lot safer if you don’t use cross walks in Latin America. Now, this probably varies in some major cities in Latin America, but all of the cities that I have visited are just as I described. I am interested to know if any of you readers have had a different experience in a particular city.
Another interesting fact worth mentioning about street etiquette—women hold hands when crossing the street in Latin America. For your information, this does not have the same connotation as two women holding hands in the U.S. Most women in Latin America do it for safety – to avoid falling down, etc.
In summary, to be safe in Latin America, do not use cross walks (or lines that look like cross walks) and be sure to stay out of the path of oncoming cars; they won’t slow down or stop for you.
If any of you have had experiences with this, I would love to hear from you.
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¡Que tengan una buena semana! (Have a great week!)
David S. Clark — President / Director
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I went on a missions trip to Peru this past summer. I noticed when we were in both Lima and Callao that people really did cross the street wherever and they almost got hit many many times. They will get inches from busses and cars and it seems like no big deal to anyone. We spent half a day at a hospital, and there was a portion of the hospital just for people who had been hit by cars or busses in the street.
I’ve been to Tijuana Mexico a couple of times (tourist section) and it’s different from most US cities. There are crosswalks at the intersections but the stop lights are 3 way. A typical cross traffic intersection allows cars to pass through on green as the cross traffic stops on red just as in the US but then both directions get the red light and pedestrians cross not only parallel and perpendicular at the same time but diagonally criss cross right through the center of the intersection. It seems to work.