I was going over some pictures from our Mexican Road Trip and came across a bunch of road signs we passed while driving on the highway.
99% of the road signs in Mexico are in Spanish, but a lot them are pretty obvious if you understand even a few Spanish words. And many words look the same in English.
Like this sign which says there's a "vehicle entrance and exit in 300 meters".
We saw this sign at least every 30 kilometers and I still don't know exactly what it means. I know that cambio means 'change' in Spanish and luces are 'lights', but when I looked up the word conceda it means 'grant you'. My guess is 'You are allowed to change your lights here', but that doesn't really make sense.
This one warns you to slow down - the direct translation is 'decrease your speed'.
Even if you didn't read Spanish you could probably take a wild guess that velocidad means 'speed'.
I knew niebla means fog, lluvia is rain and sus luces means 'your lights'.
Not sure about the word encienda, but my best guess for this sign was "Turn on your lights in the fog or rain".
Most of the construction signs we passed were easy to understand except for this one. I know proxima means 'next' and escalon means a stair or a step in a staircase. But when I looked up rodamiento it translated to 'bearing'. If you know what this sign says or have a good guess, I'd love to hear it.
And these are the signs we saw most on our road trip.


The first one says 'tollbooth in 1km', the second one displays the different toll charges and the third sign shows which of the lanes take credit cards.
We paid a total of $300 CAD in toll charges during our Mexican Road Trip and they were worth every penny. The toll roads were all two lane highways in good shape, and a lot of them were being widened and repaved. Plus, the toll booth attendants were smiley and pleasant, despite working very long days for very little money.
Driving in Mexico can be a little challenging, but if you can get over the very narrow shoulders and keep your eyes peeled for farm animals on/near the road, you'll be fine.
Just don't drive at night.
In most areas, the roads aren't safe for night time driving because of the narrow shoulders and wandering animals.
Oh, and the topes - which are huge speed bumps. Sometimes you'll see a warning sign, but on occasion they pop up out of nowhere and rip out the floor of your car.
Yes I'm exaggerating. But trust me, they're huge.
*new words:
- topes (tow pez) - speed bumps
- niebla (nee eh blah) - fog
- lluvia (you vee a) - rain
- cambio - change
- luces (loo sez) - lights