They took no charge of luggage, the bigger one they placed in a locked spaces behind the bus.
As to driving in DR: I met a nice girl with a driving license so we rented a car from Europcar and she drove us to Barahona and further to San Raphael (I had left my license at home because of the warnings hier). It was a horror-trip of 200 km each way. It started with a hit on the car in front of us after 100 m. She was just learning by doing. Among other things every now and then I found us driving on the left side. I've never been so afraid in my life. So that's what you as a driver can encounter in DR
Sounds like you were more of a rider than a driver. I feel far safer when I do the driving than when anyone else is driving - particularly someone that is 'learning by doing'.
I just got back from 28 days in the D.R. - rented a car in Santiago and drove to Cabarete - back to Santiago - back to Cabarete - on the north coast from Cabarete to Sosua to Puerto Plata to Costambar and back a few times - Costambar to Santiago back to Costambar back to Santiago on to Santo Domingo to Boca Chica to Punta Cana back to Santo Domingo to Santiago to Cabarete to Sosua to Damajagua to Sosua to La Vega to Jarabacoa to Bonao to STI and home. In short, quite a bit of driving (some of it taking people to/from STI) with no incidents (other than in Puerto Plata while stopped at a light and one of the dumbasses running between cars trying to sell crap was clobbered by one of the concho dumbasses weaving around stopped vehicles and culminatiing with one of the idiots hitting my car - but doing no damage). I did drive over about a half dozen squeegie boys that wouldn't get out of the way but they don't count do they?
Anyway, my first couple trips I avoided driving for all the reasons stated. The last couple trips I have driven and kind of enjoy it (at least in the daytime) - it isn't bad at all when you get outside of the cities. On one trip I noted that not too many cars seemed damaged from accidents - I figured if they had been in a collision it would be unlikely they would be repaired - so I came to the conclusion that travel by car was relatively safe. I don't think I've seen an accident in my DR travels.
Anyway, I agree that you need to be fairly aggressive - you absolutely need to be alert and you must be very aware of not changing lanes without actively ensuring that nothing is beside you. The idiot concho riders come from anywhere at any time - they make left turns from the extreme right side of the road and many are basically insane (As evidenced by the many one legged - one armed individuals you see looking for handouts). In December the cousin of a friend was killed in a concho accident.
On my first day back I was stopping for a light - noted the guy in front of me running it - and I didn't recognize it as anything remarkable until my brother in law mentioned it.
