Right of Weight

  Upon arriving in Paraguay, it seemed that there was no real order to the flow of traffic here.  Often, there did not seem to be any visible street signs, and the few traffic lights that I noticed seemed either to be turned off, or with such a weak light as to be rendered unnoticable.

However, upon close observation, there is an unspoken order here that is, in fact, very logical.  The hierarchy that exists will be laid forth for you here.  I have deemed it, "The Right of Weight":

1) If you are a semi pulling one or more trailers, you need not stop at any lights, signs, or intersections.

2) Drivers of light trucks and buses need only make sure that semis are not barreling through the intersection.

3) Personal four-wheeled vehicles need to watch out for the two categories above, but need not worry about motorcycles.  (Note: within this category exists plenty of sub-categories based upon size and, inversely, condition of the vehicle.)

4) Motorcyles need to pay good heed to the above three classes of transportation lest they end up underneath of any one of the three, or several at the same time.  However, free reign is given to terrorize pedestrians.

5) Pedestrians at no time should expect to be given the right of way.  The pedestrian has dominion only over his/herself and any smaller specimens of the same class.  

   5a. (It was at first thought that pedestrians had the upper hand over the street dogs.  However, this is an exception to the hierarchy.  Generally, the street dogs are smaller, but will not move out of the way of the pedestrian.  They simply lay in the middle of the sidewalk daring you to step on them.  Their general hygiene is such that seldom do the pedestrians take the opportunity to assert their dominance and instead defer to the proud specimen that is the street dog.)