Speaking topes

If you wish to drive in Mexico, almost as important as learning Spanish is learning Topes.

Topes language goes something like this: you NEVER know when a topes will appear so you MUST be on the lookout at all times when behind the wheel.

There are few rules of Topes but you can for sure count on them being congregated before, during and after a school. They will also be in front of, before and after a clinic, a hospital or any public building where people might be around.

This is a really good thing here especially because people often do take traffic lights and stop signs into consideration in that they might slow down seeing one, but if they don’t happen to see any on-coming traffic, they might not stop for either lights or signs.

So topes can protect the pedestrian or at least give them a chance to duck airborne vehicles.

And a driver should expect, slow down, and prepare to stop and proceed at 1 mile an hour at such locations.

The next rule of Topes you can count on occur randomly when there might be houses congregated on both sides of the streets, especially along highways, as people are apt to set up vending stands along any trafficked road – in the median as well as along the sides where shoulders would exist should roads be built with shoulders.

The major rule of Topes is YOU NEVER KNOW! Sometimes topes are marked. That is to say you might view a sign as you are airborne several feet beyond the topes.

Other times there might be a sign right at the topes. And still often there is a sign maybe several hundred feet before the topes appears so that by the time you hit the topes, you’ve relaxed & forgotten what the sign said.

The BEST rule of thumb is to WATCH OUT for any fading splotches of yellow paint on the road for you can be guaranteed, that yellow sits smack on top of a topes!

Of course many of the topes are either black as the asphalt they are sitting on top of, or as dusty as the rest of the road. In other words – you can’t see them. But guaranteed you will feel them, as will the rest of your vehicle.

Some are as wide as they are tall. Others appear to be slender and pointed. Some are ropes twined together and stuck across the road. Several appear as blobs dotting the highway.

Whether you are driving in the city or on a highway, you better learn to hit the topes at less than one mile an hour or your vehicle will take a beating.