How To Drive In New Mexico
Irradiated by LabRat
…Or, things I start writing in my head when I have to spend a lot of the time on the road in my home state. Some of these are less local and more universal than others.
1. The driver who seems like they might be drunk, is drunk.
Seriously. It’s damn near the official state participant sport. If a driver is weaving, constantly varies speeds for no apparent reason, and generally seems… off… treat them like they have a twenty-foot force field all around them. Even if that means you get home slower.
2. The beater car has the right of way, at all times.
If you see a car that looks like it has been assembled from the corpses of other cars, you immediately know two things: the driver has no fear, and the driver does not give a shit about his or her car. If you break this unwritten law, the next time the beater car is seen it may be wearing your car’s fender as a trophy.
3. Stringently obey all traffic laws on Indian reservations, and in pleasant-looking little small towns.
In the former case, speeders and reckless drivers are major revenue generators. In the latter, the answer to the petulant driver’s bleat to the ticketing police officers of “Don’t you have anything better to do?!” is an entirely honest “No, I do not.” In either case both communities have more reasons to care about outsiders rocketing through their turf than the state bears or the police forces of bigger cities do. In general, New Mexico is a very bad place to be an impatient driver.
4. The pickup truck with all the tools in the back probably knows more about the road you’re on than you do.
Odds are, the dude in the very well-used looking pickup with the heavy-duty modifications and enough hardware in the back for an Army Corps of Engineers unit has been all over the state and back again, possibly within the last week. If he slows down for no readily apparent reason, he might know more than you do about good reasons to in that particular area, time of day, or weather condition.
5. Washes and arroyos are not merely picturesque local color.
If it’s raining heavily, do not EVER challenge the wash, even if the running water looks shallow. Be aware of the contours of the land around you and retain awareness that, in a rocky, dry area, the lowest points where any liquid will end up. In summer, they are flash flood zones. In winter, they are where the black ice will be. The black ice is not just a good name for a metal band, it’s a good way to send your vehicle skating merrily across several lanes of traffic or into the side of a mountain.
6. If traffic is slow and you are feeling cranky and impatient, so is everyone else.
This isn’t really local and more sound advice for driving in general, but the locals aren’t always the most cautious. When driving in downtown Albuquerque and Santa Fe in particular, be aware that stop signs are treated by some as suggestions and sometimes the only way to get into a major artery at rush hour from a side street is the suicidal dive. Be sure your brakes are good and your attention isn’t wandering.
7. The more bumper stickers on the vehicle, of any sentiment, the more impulsive and dangerous the driver.
The scariest vehicle I have ever seen anywhere was the one in Albuquerque that was completely papered over with bumper stickers from the front doors back. Including the entire back window. The driver acted exactly as you’d expect someone who felt more need to display their opinions than to see out their back window would.
8. The locals are fine with it, and whether you are or not is not relevant.
Crawling speeds and inexplicable chicanes and roundabouts in Los Alamos? Adjust. Thirteen people in a barely roadworthy sedan on the highway north? Normal traffic and minor road hazard. Motorists in Santa Fe who are obeying traffic laws from other dimensions? Standard. Roads in small towns that are treated as universal mixed traffic for pedestrians, cars, bicycles, horses, dogs, and wild animals? Also normal. If you do not attempt to adapt, you will come to a bad end sooner than they will.
9. There is a nowhere, and it is possible to reach the middle.
There are places, lots of them, where there is no such thing as cell service or GPS signal*, and there are no good roads or outposts of civilization. Unless you know the area very, very well, do not fuck around with them. The concept of “here there be dragons” in mapmaking could stand to make a comeback.
10. Just because the manufacturer asserts a vehicle is “off-road” capable, does not mean it is.
It’s entirely possible they mean the vehicle can traverse a grassy plain without bursting into flames or breaking an axle, not that the vehicle can do anything else without the assistance of pavement. Your rear wheel drive only, automatic transmission conveyance that happens to be pickup shaped is not going anywhere once snow, ice, mud, and gravity join forces.
*Or places where you can get signal, but it won’t do you any actual benefit aside from affirming that you are, in fact, fucked.
February 23rd, 2012 at 4:52 pm
My mother always said the streets of Santa Fe were laid out by a blind Indian on a drunken burro.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Your rear wheel drive only, automatic transmission conveyance that happens to be pickup shaped is not going anywhere once snow, ice, mud, and gravity join forces.
That is my truck.
The important thing is that I know it’s not an off-road vehicle, and it doesn’t get anything more tricky than the occasional field (for re-creation events) or dirt road (getting to same).
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:43 pm
I take no issue with people who have whatever the hell kind of vehicle they want and know what it can and can’t do… I’ve just been a party, usually unwitting, to a lot of “it has an off-road sticker, it’ll be fine to take down into this muddy, icy canyon” aftermath.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:01 pm
90% of people don’t know how to PROPERLY drive a 2wd truck, or the value of a good set of chains, even when it isn’t the least bit icy
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:22 pm
Three and four are damn sure true!!!
Personally, I’ll follow that truck as long as he’s going the same way I am.
February 24th, 2012 at 1:38 am
“the answer to the petulant driver’s bleat to the ticketing police officers of ‘Don’t you have anything better to do?!’ is an entirely honest ‘No, I do not.'”
Word.
February 24th, 2012 at 2:53 am
Excellent post!
Drove across NM once a long time ago..I had forgotten.
February 24th, 2012 at 3:42 am
“places where you can get signal, but it won’t do you any actual benefit aside from affirming that you are, in fact, fucked”
God, this is so true. For example, have you seen Mesa, New Mexico? Google Maps doesn’t even know where it is! When I drove through a few years ago, there was literally nothing for tens of miles on either side, and Mesa itself seemed to consist solely of a single building: a closed and derelict service station. The road is so straight that you can see it fade out in the distance, and there are no other cars. This is probably not where you meant to be, you surely do not want to linger…
February 24th, 2012 at 7:48 am
We have a radio station in the Twin Cities that hands out a LOT of bumper stickers, which helpfully mark the cars of that station’s fans. Last time I saw a car blow through a red light (blissfully unaware, I’m sure), it had four — count ‘em, four — K-Dweeb stickers on the back.
Thank you, K-Dweeb! Hate your music, but your stickers provide a valuable public service.
February 24th, 2012 at 10:36 am
How does one determine the difference between the behavior of #1 and #4?
For #3, has anyone tried congratulating the officer? Act like Ed MacMahon awarding the big check for your generous contribution to the local coffers via your fine.
February 24th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
LabRat: Oh, I knew you weren’t After Me And My Kind.
It just brought to mind that it’s all about the user, not the rig.
February 24th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
McThag- #4 isn’t weaving or wobbling up and down speed changes. He’s running straight, normal, and dead steady for dozens of miles until, for no apparent reason, he slows down and runs dead steady at the new speed…
February 24th, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Except for #1, all of those are fairly true here in Utah, also. The difference with us is that if someone is weaving and driving erratically around here, it is almost always some celltard with a phone stuck in his/her ear.
February 24th, 2012 at 10:37 pm
Quite a few of those are applicable in Alaska and Tennessee as well - though I’ll try hard to remember the washes and arroyos part, coming from more sodden country.
I love the guys who drive #4 - if I’ve well and truly stuck myself in a snowbank, they are angels, to be repaid in beer.
February 25th, 2012 at 12:36 am
#2 add”and has no insurance!” to “does not give a shit about his or her car”.
I actually cultivate this appearance. Truck body is several different colors of Krylon and looks beat to hell, but everything important is first class. No one ever fights me for the right of way or a parking space.
February 25th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
I guess these California drivers give me wide berth because I drive a 30-year-old beater truck. But the trick I fell for on a reservation was stopping to help a poor family on the side of the road. They were out of gas, but had every gadget imaginable to siphon my tank. I had gassed up only an hour earlier, and they relieved me of half a tank. It made me fell rather philosophical.
February 26th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Okay, I’ll bite. Where is Mesa, NM? I’ve been all over the state and either I’ve never been there, or driven through it without noticing.
If it is along a railroad, then I’ll bet it’s on a state highway.
(And no, Google is not helpful at all - it keeps confusing it with the much larger and more established La Mesa, NM.)
February 26th, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Just fookin brilliant and 100+% true.
Two randoms: almost lost a 3/4 ton 4wd in a flowing SHALLOW arroyo 20 plus years ago- moved sideways but got out. Very cautious since
And re cellphones etc.: even in semi-civilized if dirt-road Magdalena we are on the very edge of cell service. Only Verizon works here, and we often have to go outside our old rock house. No problem for us locals, but the fury of tourists and visitors when their phones don’t work is something to see.
February 27th, 2012 at 7:11 am
Might I add: when the barriers are up on I-40, it’s not personal. The snow deities don’t want ANYONE moving between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa and Clines Corners. And don’t imagine that the weather will be any better on that little back road you think you can use. Really.
February 27th, 2012 at 9:27 am
You also forgot:
Don’t ignore the NGO road hazard warning system. When you are on a twisty bit of state highway and start passing white crosses stuck in the side of the road with dead flowers around them, SLOW DOWN!
FormerFlyer
February 27th, 2012 at 11:23 am
@Jake: Ok, here is beautiful Mesa, New Mexico
February 27th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Dood, along about April, go check out the “Niagara Falls of the West”. Its down a , road?, on that there Navajo Reservation.
Or stick to your concrete jungle, where everybody drivin a car and under 35 has a cell phone plastered to their ear or stuck in the center of their steering wheel. And stays in the left lane while txtg on their 10 key phone. They are so good at it!!!
February 27th, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Local Knowledge is always important, and a Native Guide is very helpful when venturing into unfamiliar places. Be nice to your Native Guide and reward him well, for he can really fuck you up if he takes a dislike to you, as he knows what’s up there and you don’t.
February 28th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
There is also a #11. The other guy is armed.
In New Mexico, your vehicle is considered an extension of your home, and so can you do anything in your vehicle that you can do in your home. That specifically includes keeping weapons loaded and at the ready, and many drivers do. Been there, done that.
So, that beat up old truck with a driver whom you think you can intimidate with your silly, waving hands and screaming behavior? Don’t try it. He doesn’t care about you, and he’s armed.
It’s just transportation. Deal with it.
March 5th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Oh, that’s not the middle of nowhere. That’s a well travelled major thoroughfare here in NM.
Now, White Sands Missile Range Route #9… that’s a slow way to get from 60 to 380. And it takes you right past the middle of nowhere. People live there.