Jitterbugging for Jesus

If you’re planning to vacay in Belize and rent a car, or planning to move here, you should know a few things about Belizean drivers.

Here are 10 Tips that could save your life.

1. Belizeans don’t know how to drive.

2. The worst drivers are the police, who don’t patrol in their big pickups in pairs, but in fours or even sixes or eights.

Police here have designated drivers and only they can drive the big pickups. I’ve heard, and I Belize it, that some of the police drivers have never had driver’s licenses in their lives.

3. It is never a good idea to honk your horn and flip off the police when they almost run you off the road. A dear Canadian expat friend once did that when he first moved to Belize.

Harsh, immediate justice for that offense was brought to bear on my friend on the side of the road.

4. This is important information to have about how Belizeans make turns.

First, a Belizean will check to make sure the blinker is OFF.

If making a right turn, the Belizean will abruptly swing in arc motion to the left before righting the vehicle.

If the Belizean is not a policeman in uniform, go ahead and honk and flip him off if it makes you feel better. Chances are good you won’t get hurt.

Unless the driver is an off-duty cop.

5. If the Belizean driver in front of you is making a left turn, he almost assuredly will turn in front of oncoming vehicles at high speed to avoid a collision.

He might turn on his right blinker before making the left turn just to confuse everybody behind him and in front of him.

6. As another Canadian friend said to me last year when I told him I was going home to Texas for a couple of weeks (which I’ll be doing again in one month), “Don’t forget — STOP signs are just suggestions up there.”

Indeed, in Belize, if you totally ignore a STOP sign or YIELD sign and a police pickup up loaded with eight cops is right behind you, don’t worry about it. You won’t get beaten. You won’t even get a ticket. You’ll just get passed by the police who are likely in a hurry to go for one of their 10 breaks a day for tacos.

(Cops in the states like their donut shops. Cops here, their taco shacks.)

7. You shouldn’t be shocked if you see cops in Belize drinking copious amounts of beer at their taco shacks.

I’m still shocked to see it sometimes, but the thing is, I shouldn’t be after five freaking years here.

8. In Belize, one-way streets are sometimes used as actual one-way streets. (They are suggestions, ignored.)

Ignore one-way signs and hope for the best.

9. If you’re a pedestrian crossing the street in Belize and you’re a non-believer who never prays, you might want to pray anyway.

It’s also a good idea for any pedestrian to have their will on their person.

10. Many lonely roads on Belize’s dark nights have potholes in which an untold number of drivers have driven into unsuspectingly, never to be seen or heard from again.

I’ve been told that these holes in the roads will drop you into China.

I Belize it.