Macho Road Culture -- or just Inept Road Culture?

For three years in a row here in Buenos Aires I have bought a bike and ridden it around quite a bit. This is what I do, I'm a cyclist, this is what I love to do. It's the best way to get to know a new place -- you're going slow enough to really take things in, and fast enough to cover some serious territory. It's great.

Except when dealing with Macho Road Culture.

In general, BsAs is not the most macho place, by Latin American standards. A lot of people here are very educated and cultured and busy -- they don't have much time for machismo. Of course, among the less-educated, less-cultured, and less-busy there appears to be quite a bit more machismo, but, honestly, I don't deal with them that much.

But it appears that even among the snooty upper class, and even among the women, when they get behind the wheel of a car or on top of a motorcycle, machismo rules. Brakes are for wimps, except when absolutely required. Leaving a comfortable distance between your car and the car in front -- that just shows weakness. No room for weakness when you've got a wheezing, whining 60-horsepower vehicle to command.

Two examples, of this aversion to braking in particular. When turning a corner here, cars and buses tend to cut unbelievably close to the curb, which turns the corner into more of a curve and less of a right angle, thereby reducing or eliminating the need to brake. They do this regardless of how many people are standing on the corner waiting to cross the street. When you first get here, you are likely to be terrified by a car missing you by inches as your looking the other way.

Another terrifying practice, which probably leads to more accidents (though maybe fewer fatalities) is cruising into an unmarked (or marked against you) intersection without applying the brakes. This is very common, and I've seen many near-accidents. BsAs has a lot of unmarked intersections among its side streets. And this isn't necessarily the worst thing -- some rebel traffic engineers in europe think this is actually safer, because it forces everyone to slow down and check out the intersection before proceeding.

Good in theory -- or maybe in Denmark and Holland -- but these traffic engineers probably haven't seen the intersections here. Typical practice here is to pull about 10 feet into the intersection -- about the width of the parked-car lane, and then slam on the brakes if there is a car entering the intersection before you. Or else hope that the other car slams on its brakes. My spanish teacher lived on one such corner, a busy one, and she would hear an accident every week or two she says.

Another variation of this, one that dogs me as a cyclist, is people on little side streets pulling out into the bigger street, again about the width of the parked car lane, and only then applying the brakes if anyone is coming. This happened to me two or three times just today. Typically what happens to me is that I don't want to swerve into traffic to go around the car, so I have to brake and go behind the car, taking a small detour into the side street.

The last example of ridiculous driving here that I'll mention is one of the first experiences that virtually every tourist has here in Buenos Aires: insane tail-gating by taxi drivers. Almost everyone who flies here takes a taxi to the airport. They're relatively cheap, and you just spent the night in a plane after all. You get in your taxi, and for thirty minutes, your driver keeps your little tin-can of a taxi, with broken rear seat belts, about a foot away from a series of cars in front of him, all the while doing about a hundred kilometers an hour. No lie. Okay, maybe the one foot distance is an exaggeration. But way, way too close. In the US we learn the "two second rule" -- you should have two seconds between you and the car in front. Look at a spot on the road that the car in front of you passes -- you should be able to count 1-mississippi, 2-mississippi before your car reaches that spot. Here, it's more like "1" -- without the mississippi. Not Safe. Not At All.

And I've been watching the TV news a lot, and good god do they have a lot of auto accidents here. What a surprise, huh? I should look for some statistics, but that would sort of spoil the "top-of-my-head" approach to this blog. So for now, let's just say they have a Lot. With lots of people Dead.

So, anyway, at first I just thought this is all about Macho Culture. Breaking is for pussies, being a cautious driver is the same as being an afraid driver, which means you're definitely a pussy, a weakling. And I do think that's a component. But part of me just thinks that it's more just sheeer ineptness than any kind of machismo. Good god, somebody teach these people how to drive!

Meanwhile, I'm not sure how much biking I'll be doing. It was a rough day out there today.