Over the past years, traffic in Costa Rica has become a daily ordeal, profoundly altering the behavior of our society. In this article, I briefly examine how the inherent failures of the interventionist state lie at the root of Costa Rica’s traffic crisis—and, by extension, the growing driver aggression among its citizens.
Traffic jams are so frequent that many Costa Ricans have adjusted their routines to deal with this phenomenon, treating it like a chronic illness. In certain areas, especially during peak hours, traveling just one kilometer can take over thirty minutes.
The magnitude of the problem is not anecdotal. According to Numbeo’s Traffic Index 2025, San José ranks second among the most congested cities in the world, surpassed only by Lagos, Nigeria. At the national level, the International Monetary Fund ranks Costa Rica 144th out of 162 countries in average road speed, with a mere 55 km/h. This reality is already influencing labor decisions: according to a PwC study (May 2025), the main reason people consider quitting their jobs is no longer salary, but rather the search for flexibility and the possibility of working remotely.
From a basic economic logic, there is a clear mismatch between the supply and demand for road infrastructure: while roads remain practically unchanged, the vehicle fleet keeps growing relentlessly. Supply is controlled by the state and executed through bureaucratic processes, tenders, and state monopolies. Demand, on the other hand, freely responds to aggregated individual preferences.
An immediate counter-argument might suggest that the government can alter demand by restricting supply. Two responses emerge: First, in Hoppe’s style: despite manipulated supply, the number of cars continues to grow. Second, if we accept that argument, it only proves that the inefficiencies of the public transportation system—also state-controlled—force citizens to seek private solutions, further intensifying the problem. The dynamic is clear: demand increases, supply remains static, trapped by the inefficiencies of government management.
The state’s monopoly over road infrastructure creates perverse incentives: lack of innovation, absence of competition, chronic delays, and bureaucratic barriers that prevent an agile response to the changing needs of society.
But the damage is not merely economic. As Hoppe and Bastos argue, free and capitalist societies tend to soften manners; voluntary cooperation and market efficiency foster more civilized environments. In contrast, state interventionism breeds scarcity, social friction, and hostility. Few things illustrate this better than Costa Rica’s endless traffic jams.
It is often claimed that bad driving habits reflect a broader cultural deficiency. I propose the opposite: deficiencies in infrastructure—caused by government inefficiency—create a hostile environment in which people, by necessity, adopt less courteous and more aggressive behaviors. Stress and impatience naturally arise when the road system fails to meet even basic mobility needs. This deterioration in daily social interactions gradually and insidiously erodes the social fabric.
Costa Rica—once known for its hospitable and friendly people—now faces a concerning transformation: traffic jams are displacing cordiality with hostility, particularly in interactions related to commuting. The more time people spend stuck in traffic, the more these attitudes spread, gradually deteriorating the quality of social relations.
Faced with this reality, the typical response is to demand more public investment or a more efficient state administration. But this falls into the very contradiction Hayek warned about: bureaucrats cannot possibly comprehend the needs and preferences of millions of citizens dispersed across time and space. Decisions are made from the top down, without passing through the approval of the consumer, in other words, the people themselves.
What is truly relevant is not just the wasted time or economic cost, but the subtle yet profound transformation in patterns of social behavior. Courtesy gives way to impatience, and cooperation dissolves into forced competition over a scarce resource: road space. This is not merely a problem of infrastructure; it reflects how the material conditions imposed by state interventionism end up shaping culture itself.