A Stop Sign Means...

Yesterday we were bouncing along a poorly-paved road on the edge of Maputo. Melvin was driving his truck, while Laura, Raul and I rode along.

Melvin cruised right through a stop sign, slowing down only enough to make sure that crossing traffic wouldn’t be a problem.

“You’ve really grabbed ahold of the Mozambican driving ethic, haven’t you, Melvin?” I chided him. “Every time I stop at a stop sign,” I continued, “Raul laughs at me and tells me that stop signs aren’t really for stopping, they’re for slowing.”

I looked over at Raul to make sure he was listening.

Raul doesn’t drive, so naturally Laura and I felt that our knowledge of driving was superior to his.

“The sign says ‘STOP’ in English,” Raul reasoned, “so that people know that it means to slow down. If they actually wanted drivers to stop, they would write it in Portuguese. Parede.”

We argued the logic for quite a long time, pretty much until the point that our stomachs couldn’t handle the laughter anymore.

But underlying Raul’s humorous logic was a point: why, even in a country where the official language is Portuguese, do they use the standard octagonal English stop sign?

And is Raul's interpretation of a stop sign really any different than our interpretation of speed "limit" signs back home? Yes, the sign says that the limit is 100 km/h. What they really mean is 120 km/h.