Driving in Mexico

Mexico does have rental companies such as Avis and Budget to rent a car. With you passport, driving license and credit card, you should be able to rent a car either long term or short term. 

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Driving in Mexico, mostly in the major cities, is basically like driving in Chicago. Unfortunately do not expect people to follow road rules, or signaling when turning or changing lanes. In areas with STOP signs/ Alto, it is almost always a rolling stop instead of a hard stop. During the first few weeks of driving, I recommend doing hard stops at Stop signs because people do not always stop at STOP signs. 

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Another common road feature you will notice are the speed bumps known as Topes (TOE-pace). These speeds bumps are very common on roads and expect them to appear on the road with no warning signs. In addition to the speed bumps, you could also expect potholes sometimes even on the highways. Most common car damages are due to the potholes on the roads. 

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A good behavior among the Mexican drivers is that they will user emergency lights when there's a sudden stop or traffic slow down ahead. And if you are on a one lane road, and you want to overtake, if the vehicle in front you turn their left signal on, that means they are letting you overtake them. 

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A common behavior from road police here is that they drive around with their red/blue lights on the entire time. This doesn't mean they are pulling you over. If they want to pull you over, they will honk at you or turn their siren on. 

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You can use Google maps or Waze for directions but expect even Google maps to get confused on major cities. It is also very common to have lanes merge or close without any warnings. So it is highly recommended not to have any distractions while driving for the first few times and in new cities. 

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