So if DR is ranked third in road fatalities why in the hell would I double my chances of being killed with 2 morons going head on, the one coming at me and the one driving me. If I am driving I can usually see a moron coming and avoid him.
i find its better to be a passive driver, let everyone else do the mad things and watch from a safe slow distance with plenty of time to adjust-aggressive driving is going to **** the wrong person off one day
It amazes me how some people here have not figured this out. Of course Dominicans are more skillful when it comes to driving, that does not mean driving politely. I've been living in the US for 15 years and travel to the DR sometimes 3 times a year and adapt instantaneouly. Proof of this is that no matter how wider, more organized and how much friendlier people drive in the US, they seem to have more accidents. Almost everyday I go to work I see an accident, sometimes more than one in a 20 minute commute in a freeway that has 5 lanes on each side, and sometimes I think what if these people had to drive in the DR, there would be a crash every second.
As someone mentioned here before the best way to drive in the DR is "defensive agressively", and by the way we dominicans drive like this in the DR is because we can get away with it and we choose to do so, proof of this is that the second a Dominican drives in the US he or she obeys every rules just like everybody else.
The reason why "public cars" have so many dents is because they are bought very old to begin with, usually already dented so that they can get it cheaper and when they have an accident they don't carry insurance or "collision coverage i should say". Even if the accident is not their fault they'd rather get the money either from an insurance company or the driver at fault and not fix the dent and of course they have a better chance of having an accident when they drive 10 hours a day as opposed to your average 1 hour a day commute in the US.
Dominicans can drive in any country without difficulty, not the other way around. All that being said, I agree that there's a lot of room for improvement for us to make it easier to people who visit us and want to drive in our country, however people who go to another country have to adapt to that country's way of living and not expect otherwise.
My grandad drove until he was 96 year old, never had an accident although until we took his car off him I suspect he caused a few. Funny, I never see old ditherers in the city. I reckon the oldest drivers I see here must be mid 60's.