Traffic in Panama City can be chaotic, and a lot of drivers are aggressive. If you drive defensively as you should, sooner or later some jerk will lean on his or her (usually HIS) horn to demand that you run a red light or get into an accident. Appropriate hand gestures will be taken as the most uncalled-for gross insults.

Take your time, ignore the horns behind you, pay attention to traffic laws, signs and the Transito cops, and the odds will be in your favor. The folks in the photo above, for example, almost certainly got to work with themselves and their cars intact.

Below, however, a Colon-Panama local bus driver decided to take more than his allotted one lane to gain advantage on Via España, causing a fender bender. The racket created by a few annoyed drivers behind the accident scene did not help. The cop who arrived shortly after the picture was taken, however, did get traffic flowing again. Photos and text by Eric Jackson

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