A Kinder Gentler Highway Experience
What motivates people to drive cautiously? In Vallarta the focus of driving is to keep on moving. Stop signs are guidelines and offered up as suggestions to take a moment and pause. If the intent is to make people slow down then the topes (speed bumps) are the only way to influence driving behavior. Why? Topes can cause significant harm to a vehicle, which is a prized possession, and must be cared for.
Therefore, that is why topes are used so frequently throughout the city. They work! What doesn’t work is relying on driver’s good intentions, especially when it comes to driving on Highway 200 – the Carretera. Everyone loves zooming up and down the highway and the feeling that they are driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. Same beautiful waters, but a whole lot more pedestrians. Safety was the number one issue for ANA members. It includes home and personal safety. Whether you own or rent, walk or drive, it is important for everyone to be able to cross the highway.
The stretch of highway that divides the Amapas community twists and turns and allows vehicles to accelerate and decelerate at amazing speeds. Quite often there are multi-denominational prayer services held at the blind intersections where requests for heavenly assistance can be overheard. Please, oh please, make sure the oncoming vehicle is not accelerating as I enter the highway. Pedestrians and drivers pray to their respective divinities. Wouldn’t it be great if we all just slowed down? What if every time we saw a pedestrian trying to cross the highway we stopped and let him/her do so? What if we were driving slow enough to allow another vehicle to merge in front of us? What if we all just got along? All possibilities. All dreams. What is our reality?
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