#44 – The Expat Files: Driving in Latin America and the Perils of Poor Road Conditions

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:01] South of the border, down Mexico way. That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play. Hi everybody, I'm Johnny Mueller. And you're listening to The Expat Files. Living in Latin America. The one of a kind show that tells you what it's like to live, work, play and or retire in Latin America. It's a fact that millions of Europeans and North Americans have already made that big move south of the border. You might know someone who already has. Maybe it's your dream to do it someday. Well it's a big move and it's not to be taken lightly. And that's just what this show is all about. So let's get started. Now in a recent past program, I talked about the kind of cars that you should and shouldn't drive down here in Latin America.

[00:51] And I explained how it's always better to have a car that has a suspension system that's raised up high off the ground. Due to the fact that the roads are in such piss poor condition. And that at any time, you could fall into a hole or a trench or a gutter or even a washed out piece of pavement. And when that happens, your car's frame is likely to drop down fast and hit the ground hard. And you don't want to break a strut or a tie rod when you're driving around down here, believe me. Especially when you're on a road in the boonies or anywhere at night. And when you have the full weight of the car momentarily scraping against the road. Sometimes the first thing to go is the oil pan and the oil drain plug. And if any of those things give, you're in big trouble. And if you happen to be driving along on a lonesome road and scrape bottom and lose your oil plug in the process.

[01:39] That means you've got about three minutes to pull over and stop your car. Because if you keep that motor running, you'll be looking at a five hundred to a thousand dollar bill to have your engine overhauled. Not to mention, you're looking at having your car in the shop for at least a week or two. So it's worth repeating that the bottom line here is, don't buy a car that's low to the ground. And that's why so many people down here drive four by fours in pickup trucks. And the fact is, almost no one who has a four by four ever actually runs the thing in the four wheel drive mode. It's the fact that pickup trucks and four wheel drive vehicles have suspensions that are far up off the ground. Which gives you a lot of protection from road hazards down here. And believe me, the hazards are so many, I can't even list them all.

[02:25] And there's another very good reason why there are so many four by four vehicles down here. You see, vehicles like that are just a perfect fit for the macho society. Driving a four by four makes a guy feel really cool. Even if he can't afford the gas, he can sit in the McDonald's parking lot, roll down the windows, put on his shades and look like a first world big shot. Well, at least he thinks he does. Now, in a past show, I also mentioned that once in a while you see a Jaguar or a Porsche or a Corvette or a Mercedes Coupe down here. And because those things are so low to the ground, buying or driving one of those totally violates every one of my rules when it comes to safe, comfortable and inconspicuous Latin American driving. And it's a funny thing. Let's say you go to a BMW dealership.

[03:11] Now, the showroom is going to be just like it is in the first world and they're going to display all their models, including the extra sporty two-seater Z3 and Z4 models. I'm sure you know what those are. They're kind of the BMW version of the Porsche Boxster, which is another great car for the first world, but I'll never recommend that you drive one down here. Anyway, as for my example, you can buy a brand new BMW Z3 or Z4 for, let's say, $50,000 or $60,000. And believe me, they don't sell many of those, but there are a handful of them in every big city in Latin America. Now, here's the real strange thing. If you look in the classified section of any newspaper, occasionally you'll see a two- or three- or four-year-old BMW Z3 or Porsche Boxster or Mercedes Sports Coupe for sale in the paper

[03:58] and will always have very low mileage or kilometers on them. And almost always, the odometer will be expressed in kilometers, unless it's brought in from the United States. And then, of course, it'll be expressed in miles. And if you're not used to working in kilometers, just take the mileage and multiply it by 1.6. But do remember, after living down here a while, you're going to have to get used to that metric system. So you might want to drag out that fourth-grade math book, because believe me, you're not going to be able to convert grams to pounds unless you hung out with the hippies or Goths in high school. But let's get back to that very low mileage three- or four-year-old luxury sports car I was talking about. Now, a four-year-old sports car with only 5,000 miles on it should send up a red flag right away. For example, you'd expect the three- or four-year-old normal car to have 30,000 or 40,000 miles on it,

[04:46] whether the car was being driven in the first world or the third world, which breaks down to 40,000 or 50,000 kilometers. That would be based on normal usage down here and up in the first world. And most dealers down here say normal driving is between 10 and 15,000 kilometers a year. But the real shocker is that down here, three- or four-year-old luxury sports cars, and some even older than that, can often be found with unbelievably low mileage on them, like they've almost never been driven at all, except maybe the occasional Sunday when it wasn't raining. Even a five-year-old BMW Z3 or a Porsche Boxster might only have five or six or eight thousand kilometers on it, or something like 5,000 miles on the odometer. Now, to any person up north who knows a thing about cars, a car with 5,000 miles on it is virtually brand new.

[05:34] And why should that be? Why should a three- or four-year-old car be virtually brand new? Well, one big reason is because of the rotten infrastructure. And a person with a car like that soon realizes there are only so many places he can drive it. In fact, almost everybody who's ever owned a car like that will tell you that when in the first month he did some real damage to the underside of his car. It probably went back to the shop for repairs more than once. And I'm talking about the very first month he owned it. Because the sad fact is, when you hit a big road crater with a car like that, or negotiate one of those giant speed bumps called tumelos just a little bit too fast, well, that's an instant recipe for a giant repair bill, especially on ultra low-riding cars like those. And speaking of low-riders, it makes you wonder why, up in the United States,

[06:23] so many young men of Latin descent, especially Mexican descent, love to drive around those low-rider cars. I mean, they even had that hit song called Low Rider by War. Do you remember that? Maybe it's because they could never have one like that in their own country, even if they had the money. Because frankly, a car like that is absolutely impossible to drive down here in Latin America. Down here, you'd get about three blocks and you'd rip your transmission out. So, somebody out there, please explain that to me if you can, okay? And people who drive cars with low clearances down here are almost always bringing them into the shop. And that means practically every sports car. And it's almost never from mechanical failure, but from the terribly crappy road conditions that these cars just aren't made for. But before I talk about how cars of all kinds get destroyed by these massive speed bumps called tumelos,

[07:14] I just want to say when you do find, in the Juan ads, one of those luxury sport vehicles for sale, even if it only has four or five thousand miles on it, and even if it's at a fire sale price of, let's say, fifteen thousand dollars, which is less than a third of the price of a new one. Well, don't be fooled. Believe me, it's not the great deal that you think it is. The reason why that guy's selling that car is, one, he's always getting pulled over by the police for one thing or another. Two, he's at a very high risk for carjacking and extortion. Three, he can't park it anywhere and leave it, even in a secure parking lot, because chances are, he's had his radio and his battery and his tires and any number of other things stolen already. And four, there's a hundred percent probability that he's had the frame of his car damaged so badly by driving over bad roads, holes, and tumelos,

[08:06] that he's probably already had some huge repair bills regarding struts and shocks and tension rods and ball joints. And on a high-end sports car like that, you can almost bet that every trip to the shop is going to cost you at least a thousand dollars. So paying fifteen thousand dollars for a near brand new car like that is a great deal, but only if you box it up in a container and send it back to the first world. And I look at the classified ads down here a lot. And I notice when one of those luxury sports cars does go up for sale, it's a very thin market and there just aren't many takers, which over time tends to drive the price artificially low. And I've seen that many times. For example, the price might start around twenty five thousand dollars. In other words, they usually start out with the blue book value price from the first world.

[08:55] And then it'll disappear from the paper for a while and show up again like four, five, or six months later for twenty thousand dollars. Then three or four months after that, it'll drop down to fifteen thousand. Because the fact is, people who have that kind of money to go out and buy a toy like that, they usually have a few other toys like helicopters and yachts and airplanes. That class of people buys things new. They don't buy used to anything. And the people down here who've owned a sports car like that before, they get tired of the frustration of owning one really fast. And after one experience like that, they don't step into that hole again. In fact, one of my wealthy latin friends down here told me, owning a car like that is like owning a boat. And you know what they say about boats. The two best days in your life are the day you buy your boat and the day you sell it.

[09:42] For luxury sports cars like that, the market is strange. You have a rich first time buyer who buys that car and he finds out after a month or two of driving that thing, that it's just not worth the pain. But it looks so good and it's built so well and it's made in Germany after all. Not Japan or Detroit or Korea. And it's such a status symbol for him that he just can't bear it apart with it. So it sits in his garage for a year or two or three and he only takes it out on very, very special occasions and for very short runs. And finally, when he puts it up for sale, he just can't find a sucker to buy it for what it's worth. And eventually, he lets it go for a song. But still, a car like that is just not meant to be driven down here. Now, if you've been paying attention here, you can see that this might be a good opportunity for an expat to make some money.

[10:33] Why not buy up very low mileage luxury sports cars like this, put them in a shipping container and send them off to the first world? Now, that might be a very good idea. But I advise strongly against, let's say, buying up cars like that in, for example, a country like El Salvador and having the bright idea of actually driving it back home. I'll tell you, even if you drive extra slow, it's not a good idea. Because you'll be nothing but a sitting duck along the way for every thief and extortionist and cop. And having to drive a thousand miles through some very bad roads and infrastructure, you'd be lucky not to do some substantial damage to it yourself. After all, a car like that rides unbelievably low to the ground. And down here, the main culprit that does all that damage to a body frame is called a tumolo.

[11:20] So just what's this thing called a tumolo? That particularly Latin road hazard that everybody hates and despises so much. Now, if you're from the first world, you're familiar with bot dots and speed bumps. And if you're driving on a lonely stretch of road late at night, sometimes a patch of speed bumps will keep it from falling asleep and killing yourself, which is a good thing. But most of you first-worlders have never heard of a tumolo. That's a speed bump on steroids, and they're pretty much exclusive to the third world. Now, picture a continuous bump across a road that's made out of asphalt or concrete. Now, that's what a tumolo looks like. And it's usually a foot wide and domed like a half circle. And it can be anywhere from 3 to 8 inches higher than the rest of the road surface.

[12:08] Which means, if these things aren't marked right, look out. And that means, if your car takes that bump at any rate faster than 2 or 3 miles an hour. When your front tires plop over the downside, the whole front end of your car will scrunch down a bit on its shocks and your frame will scrape against the top of that tumolo. And the sound of that will just make you cringe. And the same thing happens when your back wheels make their trip over it. And in that case, it's usually even more dangerous because the back end of the car slams down against the tumolo right around your gas tank. Which really isn't a very pleasant thought. And if you've ever seen one, you'll notice that the top of every tumolo has done its dirty work. By that I mean, it's completely scored and scratched and gouged. In other words, a lot of cars have seen better days.

[12:55] And I'll tell you right now, the car loses that battle every time. Because nobody's car can butt heads with concrete and asphalt and come out of it unscathed. In fact, I've had car mechanics down here tell me that tumolos are their best friends. More than half the work of any mechanic is repairing struts and shocks and bearings and alignment problems. Thanks to those tumolos. Now, because more than half of these tumolos are not even marked, expats often have their first encounter with a tumolo at night. And not only is it shocking and totally unexpected, man does it wake you up. And let me tell you, there's nothing like hitting a tumolo at 30 or 40 miles an hour. A shock like that is guaranteed to actually bend the rims on your car. And believe it or not, that kind of force can even bend the steel belts in your radials.

[13:44] I've seen it happen. So if you're driving a rental car, be prepared to pay some damages when you drop it back off at the airport. That is, if you can even drive it after that. And you might be wondering now how many tumolos there might be in the average Latin American city. Well, the number change is practically daily, and that's why they're so dangerous. You never know where they're going to pop up. And stranger yet, in most of Latin America, they're actually illegal. So in the vast majority of cases, it's not actually the municipality or government road crews that are installing them, because it would be illegal if they did. It turns out that most tumolos are installed by individual persons or local neighborhoods who take up a collection and hire cement and asphalt workers to install these things on the sly.

[14:30] It turns out it's kind of a populist response to the fact that the police rarely enforce the traffic laws, specifically the speeding laws in populated areas. In other words, if you're living in a residential neighborhood and there's a road where cars are speeding by all day and maybe some pedestrians have been hurt or even killed out on that road, the locals will take it into their hands themselves and have a tumolo built, which, believe me, will slow down traffic in a hurry. And in fact, it's guaranteed to do a certain amount of vehicle damage, especially in those first few days when the local hot rotters aren't used to the fact that it's there yet. So what's my best guess as to how many tumolos there are down here in any given stretch of road? Well, an expat friend of mine and myself tried to make a game out of counting them one day.

[15:17] Our target country was Belize. So the first thing we did when we crossed the border was start counting tumolos. Well, we drove all the way up to Belize City on the Caribbean coast and went north to the Mexican border. And by the time we hit the Mexican border, we kind of lost count at 637. Now, to anyone driving, that's 637 ways to destroy your car. And that's besides all the other road hazards you have to deal with, like potholes and loose rocks and broken pavement and landslides and cows and goats and even the occasional odd animal migration, like the time I was driving in Panama and at least 500 crabs started crossing the road. Brilliant blue and red things, each as big as a dinner plate and heading across the road to do something or another, probably to have sex and willing to die for it

[16:08] because by the time I made it across the road, it was at least a half a dozen completely flattened out ones who'd given their lives for the cause. Anyway, we came up with 637 tumolos. And that was just on that one long stretch of road. And we also figured that about 60% of them were not marked at all. Though once in a while, about a block before one of these tumolos, there'd be a warning sign, something that looked like a sideways S on it, which to a novice driver or a first world tourist meant almost nothing. And some of the tumolos themselves were painted yellow or white. But, like one of the road workers told me, after a tumolo sits out in the sun for a couple of months, then it goes through the rainy season, by then it just loses its markings and becomes inconspicuous again.

[16:54] That is, except for the scuffs and dings and scrapes and scratches on top of it from all the other cars that it's damaged. Which means you're going to have a very hard time seeing that thing, especially when you're closing in on it at 50 or 60 miles an hour. So if you can barely see half of those things in the daytime, you can imagine what it's like at night. So my advice for expats is, if you're down in Latin America and driving on a road that you've never been on before, try to get behind a truck or a car that seems to have a local resident driving it. In other words, if the guy in front of you is weaving and bobbing and going into the opposite lane occasionally, in other words, if by all appearances, he looks like he's driving drunk, well, he's probably not drunk at all. He just knows exactly how to avoid those tumolos and potholes.

[17:41] So for the unwary expat, a guy driving like that is a very good guy to stay behind and follow because a local guy who knows the hazards will drive just as fast as the conditions will allow and not so fast as to damage his own car. And I know expats. Most of us have a lead foot from driving those nice roads up in the first world. Well, that won't do down here. And it's a real mistake to think that you can drive like you did back in Oklahoma. No way. Because let's say you hit a really nice 10 kilometer stretch of road. Well, Latin American road construction crews are notorious for not marking hazardous road conditions, like landslides and construction holes and drainage ditches and wash outs and cave-ins and for leaving the job at quitting time and leaving their own hazardous junk in the road.

[18:29] So the point is, down here, you should never assume that the nice road that you're driving on right now is going to continue for any length of time. And just as a sidebar here, I'd like to mention that up in the first world, if you're driving a car in any city and you happen to hit a manhole that doesn't have a cover on it, or if you slip over an embankment that doesn't have an adequate guardrail, in so many cases like that, you have a perfect right to sue the city for the damages and you'll often get a big judgment. Well, down here in Latin America, you can forget about all that. Every time you get behind the wheel down here, you're doing it at your own risk. And the fact is, it's infinitely more dangerous to drive down here than it is up in the first world, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Down here, even the nice, newly built roads often have long, wide and deep drainage ditches

[19:19] and sheer drop-offs of dozens of feet without a single guardrail or warning sign. In fact, that's the norm down here. Dangerous hazards are just not marked. Road construction crews, at the end of the work day, rarely clean up after themselves or cover up ditches and holes. And if you happen to be down here at the beginning of the rainy season, you'll see an amazing sight, because the dry season before it lasted six months with practically no rain at all. When the first few rainy days hit, and it really comes down, believe me, the average person on the road is like a baby taking his first steps. Somehow, everybody forgets how to drive in the rain. And that's when you really see the accidents pile up. I once counted 12 big smash-ups myself during one rainy lunch hour in Panama City.

[20:06] Not to mention the fact that there's something else the people aren't even aware of, and it always happens in the first few days of the rainy season. Now, here's the thing. After six long months of dryness, all the exhaust fumes, tiny particles and petroleum residues from the cars and the diesel trucks settle down into the fine pores and cracks in the pavement, creating a film that just stays there waiting for that first rain. And when that first rain comes, it's like driving on ice skates, believe me. Suddenly, all the main roads have a tiny oil slick on them. And if you're unlucky enough to be on a road at that time, you have to drive in it. And even if you keep a nice, long, safe distance from the car in front of you, I guarantee you the guy behind you is going to be tailgating, because that's the normal way people drive down here.

[20:52] Nobody respects the distance between cars. In fact, you might remember that it's one car length for every 10 miles an hour that your car is going. But down here, I don't think that they've forgotten that rule. I don't think they ever learned it in the first place. But I'm not saying you should forget that. In fact, you should give even more than one length for every 10 miles an hour. The problem is, no matter how much space you leave between you and the car in front of you, behind you, there's always going to be a tailgater. And that's the guy you're going to have to watch out for. Because so far, three out of the four accidents I've had down here myself have been a tailgater ramming me after I slammed on my brakes to avoid something. Now, that never would have happened had those tailgaters kept the recommended distance. And I know exactly why 95% of the people down here

[21:40] don't know the basic rules of driving etiquette and safety. And it all boils down to education. And I know what I'm talking about, because I've gone down with people to the licensing bureau and watched them take the test to get their driver's license. And if you ask me, there's no bigger joke in the world. The reality is, at any of these so-called Latin American departments of motor vehicles, the test is so stripped down a first world person wouldn't even recognize it. In fact, in at least half of the countries down here, you don't have to take the test at all. And you can buy a driver's license outright. There's always some gray market way of getting one. If you want to pay a little extra premium, and though most lawyers won't advertise that it's possible, most of them have a contact that can do it. And as far as taking driver's ed classes,

[22:27] yes, they do have driver's ed schools down here. But less than 5% of the people with a driver's license have ever taken a single course. So the bottom line is expats, you better drive defensively and really keep your distance from the guy in front of you. According to an insurance adjuster I talked to, at least three out of four accidents down here are caused by rear end collisions, which means they would have been completely avoidable if the car in the rear had just kept his distance. But like I said, people never keep their distances down here. So you can bet that if you're down here long enough, you will get rear ended, it's a fact of life. And as for me, I fit right into that statistic perfectly. I was rear ended in three of the four accidents I've been in, so there. But back to that two milo business.

[23:13] Now because they have such low income levels down here, the first and sometimes only vehicle a lower middle class guy gets is a motorcycle. And let me tell you, these two milos wreak havoc on motorcycles, because motorcycle suspension systems sit even lower than the ones on the average car. So what often happens is after a few motorcycles get ruined on a brand new two milo that's magically appeared, the next night someone will go out with a pickaxe and cut a chunk out of that two milo, so in the future motorcycles can pass without a problem. And speaking of pickaxes, often in some communities where there are a lot of two milos, sometimes two or even three per block, they are such an annoyance to drivers who pass through that area quite often.

[24:01] That oftentimes there will be nighttime vigilantes ticked off vehicle drivers with pickaxes and shovels that go out in the dead of night and blast those hated two milos to rubble. But it's also bound to tick off the local residents too. So many times, a few days to a few weeks later, a new two milo will suddenly appear. So it's kind of like a scaled down version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Two milos get built and if nobody objects, they stay there. And if not, they disappear. And then the cycle will repeat itself over and over again. And because in most countries down here they are illegal, often you'll see an op-ed piece in the paper talking about the evils of illegal two milos and how the government should step in and eliminate them all. But you see, there's a flaw in that logic

[24:46] because it's actually the government's fault that people are taking it into their own hands and putting in two milos. If the police were actually enforcing speed laws down here, there would be no need for two milos. And if they can't get the police to cooperate on a little thing like that, how are they going to put together whole road crews to go out there and get rid of those two milos? It's just not going to happen. And to give you guys just another example on how poorly run the police departments are down here. You know that up in the first world, anytime a school bus stops to let kids off and on, if you're behind that school bus or in front of it, you'd better stop. And if you don't wait right there until a bus's red lights stop flashing, you're liable to get something like a $200 fine, isn't that right? Well, like I said, down here in Latin America, they have adopted all the rules and regulations we have up in the first world,

[25:34] including that one about the school buses. However, nobody obeys it. When a school bus stops and the red lights start flashing, even the policemen themselves ignore it and whip right around. I've seen it happen at least a dozen times. So like I said, driving down here is a real experience and much more dangerous than driving in the first world. But knowing that, you can drive defensively and take other precautions, like maintaining a huge distance from the other guy. But still, sometime or another, you're going to get rear-ended. If you're a driver down here, that's a fact of life. And one last thing about those two milos. Sometimes when expats get together at parties and such, we discuss things like that, especially when one of us expats has had the bottom of his car torn out recently

[26:21] by one of those two milo monsters. And you could say that some of us expats down here have a short fuse and when pushed to the limit, can get a little crazy. In fact, one expat friend of mine, who owns a part of a construction company down in Costa Rica, he was so pissed off with six two milos that were just wreaking havoc on the trucks and equipment he was using, slowing his efforts way down on a project he was building. Anyway, one night, after a few beers, he got so ticked off at those two milos that he jumped up on a Case 580 backhoe, fired it up, and bulldozed all six of those two milos right off the road. And as the weeks went by and his construction project went forward, he fully expected one day to see those two milos reappear,

[27:06] because that's what usually happens. And one day, about a month later, he was sitting in a local restaurant and he overheard two young kids talking in Spanish and one said, Hey, look over there, there's that crazy ass gringo. My dad told me to stay away from him because he's really nuts. Completamente loco. So the moral of that story is, sometimes it's good to let him think you're nuts, because then you can get away with almost anything. You've been listening to The Expat Files, living in Latin America. And don't forget, you can email me on anything at all about Latin America. The Expat Files at gmail.com. That's theexpatfiles at gmail.com. See you next time.

[27:52] Nos beimos.