Nowadays, traffic accidents in Colombia kill more people than acts of violence. Board a bus or a taxi, or (shudder) attempt to drive your own vehicle in Colombian roads and you’ll soon feel as if you’re watching the action unfurl on a racing video game.

It’s very simple: People don’t know how to drive here, so unlearn everything you think you know about proper driving. Just turn-on the ignition and the race is on! Defensive driving is out of the question: aim at pedestrians and other vehicles who dare stray into your path, and if they don’t get out of your way, they’ll be sorry! Never mind that the old lady was halfway through the pedestrian crosswalk, or that the other driver had the right of way: you’re the king! If you’re one of the 50% of drivers that prefer motorcycles, then act as if no rules apply to you other than wearing a helmet and a “chaleco” (a jacket with your license place number on it): weave between cars and even mount the sidewalk if you have to!

Stop signs (Pare) mean absolutely nothing, and traffic lights are optional, especially late at night, in which case you can ignore all of them. Make sure you tailgate everybody, even at 120 kph (72 mph), and don’t worry about blind curves in tight mountain passes, of which there a lot of in this country: Just invade the opposite lane and if some other vehicle appears around the bend, play chicken with them! Don’t worry about traffic cops: if they even bother to stop you, you can just bribe them anyway! If you do wind-up in an accident, do like everybody else: drive off (if you can). They won’t even look for you! On the other hand, if you stay at the scene of the accident and someone was injured, you could spend a nice amount of time in a lovely Colombian jail while awaiting your trial.

Back to reality. Don’t bother renting or buying a vehicle here. Don’t travel at night on rural roads, or avoid them altogether for long distance trips and fly instead, and you’ll be more likely to stay alive!

Dangerous roads aren’t exclusive to Colombia, of course. I can say the same thing about Argentina and many other places, but thus far the worst offenses I’ve witnessed happened here, such as one vehicle passing another that was also passing yet another on a two lane mountain curb! Drivers here seem to be in a constant panic, and part of the reason may be that a few years back, idling at an intersection, or driving slowly could make you a sitting duck for bandits. There’s very little of that happening nowadays, so the only way the bad driving habits will die is if the law clamps down on offenders. Oh, how they’ll fill those coffers once they do!!

* Note that even smaller cities have a “pico y placa” system in place, whereby if your plate number ends in one of those listed, you can’t drive on city streets that day.