Feb. 16, 2026
Re Driving in Merida (for visitors):

To drive, or not to drive:
To LYFT, DiDi, Uber … or … to take your life into your own hands …
😉

There are reasonably regular posts on FB forums here by visitors, asking about renting & driving cars in Merida.

What’s the answer?

It’s complicated …
For context on people’s advice, consider who is telling you what to do?
… Me? … As a 15 yr old, I grew up driving 5-ton dump trucks in Washington DC & the DC area … and yes, I had visited Merida from 1986 – 2005 … yet, I was still not quite ready to drive smoothly or confidently around Merida when we moved here in 2006. … along with crazy local driving quirks … and along with searching your routes as complicated by … how the street names/street numbers change radically so often as you move between our 520 so colonias/fraccionmentos … where many many streets has one name on the left side of the block, and have a different name/number on the right side of the block …

and Circuito Colonias … our big internal “ring” road … appears … and disappears … often …

Yes, Google Maps helps some … but driving in Merida can have so many quirks, that even the local professional taxi and Uber/DiDi/LYFT drivers struggle with … especially how to avoid the worst intersections at the worst times of day, and so many places where if you miss a turn, you have to drive 5 – 15 blocks to recover …

Then also realize that we have an absolutely WILD variations of drivers here … from maniac-motorcyclists taking incredible changes … to motorcyclists who putt*putt*putt along slowly, blocking traffic … to 3 wheeled, 1-speed, carguero tricycles creeping along … to baches (wicked potholes) that just pop up in places that were smooth streets just the day before … to MISSING sewer grates – with 2 ft deep holes … to so many nasty, self-entitled, highly aggressive, cut-everyone-else’s-throats KIA drivers slashing & burning their way around Merida …

including some people who aimlessly – blindly cut across 3 lanes of traffic at the last moment, to make a left turn from the extreme right lane at the last moment…. mixed in with others creeping around to protect their most-valued possession, highly-treasured new cars …

along with ALMOST NO HISTORICAL driving culture here, because most people here DID NOT EVER LEARN TO DRIVE until after about 1992 (so, there’s no culture of kids watching Mom or Dad or Uncles driving reliably nor SAFELY)

… Then consider how … like the State of Michigan issuing hunting licenses to THE BLIND …

~ANYONE~ here can get a license … if they can simply parallel park one time …

Then there’s the whole thing about the overwhelming cultural peer pressure here for Meridanos to be soooo polite in ALL personal interactions, (as they have to eat a lot of shit from their bosses & managers & supervisors, and eat a lot of shit from their mothers-in-law … and eat a lot of shit from their neighbors … ALL in the name of avoiding conflict by being artifically polite in all interpersonal interactions) … which means we have so many drivers on the road here who are super-frustrated with other people, but can’t express it … so, OUT pops all their pent-up aggressions when they have the anonymity of driving in a city of over 1 million people.

Unless you have great skills from driving some crazy place like Boston … with crazy street layouts, triangular blocks, tons of totally illogical 1-Way streets … instead, CONSIDER using ubers/LYFT et al … or hire a local driver.

and YES, driving in Chicago was a piece-of-balkava compared to Boston, Washington DC or Merida driving. 🤣

Though Swindon drivers may also qualify.



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Feel free to copy while giving proper attribution: YucaLandia/Surviving Yucatan.
© Steven M. Fry

Read on, MacDuff.