46 Things To Know Before Driving in Puerto Rico

Dri­ving in Puer­to Rico has always been hec­tic. Road con­di­tions on the Island are in a deplorable state due to the depres­sion (yes, the cor­rect word is depres­sion, because there’s no such thing as a 10-year reces­sion) that has affect­ed the U.S. ter­ri­to­ry for close to a decade. Throw in the way many Puer­to Ricans dri­ve like mani­acs and it’s a real gam­ble to get behind the wheel and explore this trop­i­cal paradise.

You might be think­ing: “why is the author of a blog like “Puer­to Rico By GPS” telling us not to dri­ve in Puer­to Rico”? And maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just shut up and keep entic­ing tourists to explore every cor­ner of Puer­to Rico. But I’m not wired that way. I tell it like is.

You can decide to ignore the hun­dreds of pot­holes and even get used to the crazy dri­ving style of the Puer­to Ricans. But when the gov­ern­ment tries to bal­ance the bud­get on the backs of the peo­ple who decide to endure these unfor­tu­nate con­di­tions that’s tak­ing it too far.

Fines have been increas­ing steadi­ly due to the crazy way in which many Puer­to Ricans dri­ve. They ignore speed lim­its, run through traf­fic lights, cut you off at the last minute, change lanes with­out a turn sig­nal, park wher­ev­er they please… it’s a night­mare! But the lat­est fine hike is just too much! It’s basi­cal­ly anoth­er tax on an already hurt­ing cit­i­zen­ry. What’s worse, it’s a tax on you, the tourist who’s unaware of these laws and comes to our Island with fresh green dol­lars that help uplift our economy.

Well, be aware because the Puer­to Rican gov­ern­ment is out to strip you of those hard earned green­backs. Hell, many of the approved fines can cost you more than your plane tick­et. So here’s a list of the lat­est fine rates just so you’ll know what you’re get­ting into:
  • Park­ing in a hand­i­cap space — $1,000.00
  • Dri­ving with a sus­pend­ed or revoked dri­vers per­mit — $300.00
  • Not yield­ing to an emer­gency vehi­cle — $100.00
  • Speed­ing (up to 99 mph) — $100 +$10 for every mile over the limit
  • Speed­ing (over 100 mph) — $1,000
  • Speed­ing in a school zone — $200 +$10 for every mile over the limit
  • Speed­ing in a road work area — $150 +$10 for every mile over the limit
  • Dri­ving too slow­ly (20 mph under the speed lim­it) — $100
  • Dri­ving too slow­ly (where two or more lanes are avail­able) — $200
  • Incit­ing road rac­ing — $3,000.00
  • Road rac­ing — $5,000 + 6 month sus­pen­sion of your dri­vers per­mit + vehi­cle confiscation
  • Reck­less dri­ving — $500 to $1,000
  • Dri­ving on the road shoul­der — $500 + 6 points
  • Park­ing on side­walks, medi­ans or green areas — $150
  • Park­ing in a car­go zone — $150
  • Obstruct­ing a hand­i­cap ramp — $500
  • Obstruct­ing traf­fic while wait­ing for oth­ers — $100.00
  • Pass­ing a red light — $500 + 6 points
  • Stop­ping at a red light and then pass­ing it — $300.00
  • Pass­ing a yel­low light — $300.00 + 6 points
  • Tint­ed win­dows — $100.00
  • Catch­ing up to and pass­ing a bus — $300.00 + 4 points
  • Rid­ing a motor­cy­cle with a pas­sen­ger under 12 — $100.00
  • Rid­ing a motor­cy­cle with­out a fas­tened and DOT approved hel­met — $100.00
  • Rid­ing a motor­cy­cle on the side­walk — $500.00
  • Talk­ing on a cell phone while dri­ving — $100.00
  • Not using a safe­ty belt — $100.00 per passenger
  • Car­ry­ing a child with­out a child seat — $400.00 + 6 points
  • Using a child seat not cer­ti­fied by the fire depart­ment — $100.00
  • Pas­sen­ger under 12 in the front seat — $500.00
  • Dri­ving with­out a copy of the vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion — $100.00
  • Unread­able license plate — $100.00
  • Dri­ving with an expired reg­is­tra­tion tag (mar­bete) — $500.00
  • Dri­ving with a license plate belong­ing to anoth­er vehi­cle — $1,000.00
  • Alter­ing a license plate — $100.00
  • Not trans­fer­ring own­er­ship of a sold vehi­cle before 30 days — $200.00
  • Not trans­fer­ring own­er­ship of a sold vehi­cle before 10 days — $100.00
  • Dri­ving a vehi­cle with the wrong type of dri­vers per­mit — $200.00
  • Loan­ing a car to some­one with­out a dri­vers per­mit — $200.00
  • Dri­ving in reverse gear — $100.00 + 4 points
  • Not yield­ing to a blind per­son (with a cane or ser­vice dog) — $200 + 3 points
  • Not keep­ing the prop­er dis­tance between vehi­cles — $100 + 3 points
  • Obstruct­ing traf­fic at an inter­sec­tion — $100.00
    (when the light changes and you’re stuck in the middle)
  • Park­ing a car with an expired reg­is­tra­tion tag (mar­bete) on a pub­lic road — $150.00
  • Not reduc­ing your lights for oncom­ing vehi­cles — $50.00 + 2 points
    (high beams and LED light bars)
  • Dri­ving with a defec­tive bulb — $50.00
  • Move over (what­ev­er that means) — $150.00

As you can see many of these fines are pure­ly sub­jec­tive and designed specif­i­cal­ly to be hid­den tax­es. Addi­tion­al­ly, many Puer­to Ricans just can’t afford them, so many of them will just pile them up or even dri­ve with­out a per­mit alto­geth­er. Fur­ther­more, traf­fic fines are dif­fi­cult —or even impos­si­ble— to enforce when the per­son lives in a dif­fer­ent coun­try or jurisdiction.

In any case, just be advised that the gov­ern­ment of Puer­to Rico just approved anoth­er mea­sure that makes it less appeal­ing to vis­it the Island. This, of course, unless the law just applies to local res­i­dents, which would be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al alto­geth­er, if I’m not mistaken.

So What Can You Do?

Well, you still have options. You can hire a dri­ver to take you wher­ev­er you want to go. Those are hard to find, expen­sive and unre­li­able. You can also buy an excur­sion, which might not be what you would like but would prob­a­bly be more to the government’s lik­ing (hell, they don’t care about what you like any­way). Or you can stay in the San Juan Metro­plex and the hell with all the small­er hotels, restau­rants and beau­ti­ful attrac­tions that abound through­out the island. That, my friend, is what the gov­ern­ment would real­ly love you to do.

©2017,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.
Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H
Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

8 thoughts on “46 Things To Know Before Driving in Puerto Rico”

  1. None of these sound unusu­al for Latin Amer­i­ca. I have dri­ven the entire island with not prob­lem. I worked in Peru for 2 years and all of what you have writ­ten would apply there and more. You did not even men­tion not dri­ving at night. I nev­er had a problem.

    But I sup­pose that the typ­i­cal cruise type tourist and over 60 Amer­i­can might not want to take the chance.
    But you miss so much when you just stay in San Juan. And I would nev­er want to take a bus.

    1. Now that you men­tion it, there’s an increas­ing num­ber of roads that have no lamp posts. This is because the Puer­to Rico Elec­tric Pow­er Author­i­ty is also bank­rupt and they have no mon­ey for repairs and main­te­nance. This is not my opin­ion. It’s a fact and all you have to do is dri­ve around the Island to see it.

      I guess some of my read­ers will also try to shoot the mes­sen­ger on this one.

      Maybe it just the kind of tourist that I am. When I go to a des­ti­na­tion I usu­al­ly rent a car and explore it at my leisure. I hate itin­er­aries and excur­sions. I like to explore on my own. Hence, I write for peo­ple with that mind­set. Peo­ple vis­it­ing the Island on a cruise ship will nev­er expe­ri­ence these dif­fi­cul­ties because they only have a day to explore the Old City, maybe El Yunque Nation­al For­rest and if they real­ly stretch it the Bac­ar­di Rum Distillery.

      And guess what? They don’t dri­ve to any of those places, so they won’t expe­ri­ence the pot­holes, the crazy dri­vers and the out­ra­geous traf­fic fines. But for tourists like me (for whom the site is actu­al­ly cre­at­ed) it’s sur­vival of the fittest!

  2. Great info. We do sev­er­al big events of Surf­ing every year. Rin­con, Jobos, San Juan… Monty

  3. DON’T GO TO FAR, MY DAUTHER IN LAW, THE WIFE OF A CAPTAIN IN THE US ARMY, STATION IN TEXAS, GOT A $300.00 FINE IN OKLAHOMA, WHILE DRIVING TO TEXAS, AND FINALLY SHE PAID $900.00, BECAUSE IT TOOK HER TWO WEEKS TO PAY IT. SO THERE NO DIFERENCE IN THE U.S.

    1. Idio­cy has no bound­aries. It has been proven repeat­ed­ly that increas­ing fines does­n’t reduce any giv­en behav­ior. On the oth­er hand, what it does do is scare away vis­i­tors. I just got back from a 42-day trip to the U.S. (vis­it­ing 12 Nation­al Parks on my own, no itin­er­aries or excur­sions) and I paid $14 for a toll in Texas that only cov­ered a 2‑mile stretch. You can bet your bot­tom dol­lar that I’ll nev­er go there again.

  4. Hey bud, thanks for hurt­ing our tourism. Have you seen roads on oth­er Car­ribbean Islands???
    You MUST be kid­ding. .I am vis­it­ing NY and the traf­fic, tick­ets and self absorbed dri­vers are far worse. And fines???? There are cam­eras at every inter­sec­tion. In Rin­con PR where I live we don’t even have a traf­fic light.

    1. If you took a minute to look at the rest of the site you would see that most of what I do is pro­mote Puer­to Rico FOR FREE!

      The ones hurt­ing our tourism are our gov­ern­ment offi­cials. And let me tell you, they’re pret­ty good at that. They don’t need any help.

      What I don’t do is lie to my read­ers. I tell it like it is.

      Of course there are oth­er places that are bad as well, but why do we have to com­pare our­selves with them? Why can’t we strive to be better?

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