Quick Notes on Driving in Puerto Rico

[JayhawkCO]

So I rented a car this past weekend and did some road tripping in PR, clinching all of the interstates and getting some untraveled numbers. A few things stuck out to me when I was there:

• Five different kinds of reassurance markers possible for the same road, which is interesting. (Priary, Urban Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and then also some old ones that need to be replaced as seen in the bottom pic.)

• Signage is pretty good with lots of reassurance markers, even in the cities as is shown here on PR42 in San Juan.

• There is absolutely no sense of "keep right unless passing". When driving, you're constantly changing lanes to get around traffic going 10-15 mph under the speed limit.
• Overall though, driving habits are a lot more like mainland U.S. than they are like the Dominican Republic. Lanes are adhered to and no one drives particularly aggressively. Lane changes without blinkers is proably the biggest bad habit.
• All three PR interstates have quite scenic spots, with I-PR2 particularly pretty around Hatillo & Yacua, I-PR1 pretty most of the way except nearish to San Juan, and I-PR3 probably the least exciting.
• Road quality is much better than I was expecting on territorial roads. Rarely did I see potholes. City streets on San Juan less so -- had an Uber driver get a flat from hitting a pothole at 25-30 mph.
• I find it a little weird that distances are in km, gas is in liters, but speeds are in mph.
• Traffic I didn't find too bad. We left San Juan at rush hour, and didn't get delayed more than 10 minutes. The times that slow you down around the island most are when the highways cease and turn into divided highways with a lot of stoplights.

Overall, a really nice drive for sure.

[JayhawkCO]

Also, for clinching purposes...

[Rothman]

My parents found that traffic lights were more like suggestions than mandates when they visited.

[JayhawkCO]

My parents found that traffic lights were more like suggestions than mandates when they visited.

People definitely kept left turns going a car or two past red, but nothing too bad that I saw.

[Rothman]

My parents found that traffic lights were more like suggestions than mandates when they visited.

People definitely kept left turns going a car or two past red, but nothing too bad that I saw.

It has been a long time since they visited.  Over a decade ago.