Peruvian Traffic: A Whole Different Animal

It's our first day. We're walking to class. We come to a large intersection, 4 lanes on one side (or the equivalent), 2 lanes on the other. There's no stoplight. There's no stop sign. There's not even a crosswalk. It's just one big free-for-all. We stood there, paralyzed with fear. This was completely foreign to us. We had no idea what to do.

In Perú, however, this is the norm. There are very few concrete regulations for traffic. The ones that do exist are rarely enforced. I couldn't tell you the amount of times I watched as a stop sign went flying by outside the window. But it works. People figure it out. It comes down to a simple, common-sense system of space - if you have space to go and you can get to that space the fastest, then you go. This system worked well enough that I didn't see an accident the whole trip.

This is a sharp contrast to America, where cops are much more keen on stopping people for traffic violations. My dad got a $350 ticket for speeding in a school zone, my sister got a $200 super speeder ticket, the list goes on and on. But in Perú? This rarely, if ever, happens.

This could be for a couple of reasons. Drug trafficking is a larger problem in the US, so sometimes police will use traffic violations to pull over someone they suspect of carrying drugs. On the other hand, the Peruvian police aren't heeded as much. I never saw a single police cruiser, and some locals I talked with said it was relatively easy to bribe the police. As a result, whatever traffic rules exist are largely ignored.

Whatever the reason, I admittedly enjoyed the freedom of this free-for-all type system. I waited for my moment, and stepped out to cross the road.