But to get today´s episode up and running, here´s a question for you all. How many of you remember that classic Shakin´ Stevens number from the early 80´s SING “You dwive me cwaaazeee”? Come on I know how old some of you are….hahaha – anyway that´s our theme for today. We´re going to delve into the myriad of differences between driving in one country and in another – what are you supposed to do differently? What´s ok and what´s not? Which rules just make no sense at all and what does all that arm waving really mean? We are looking to identify which aspects of driving overseas really do drive Ginger Gerald (and no doubt you too) cwazy!
I guess the very starting point is the side of the road you are accustomed to drive on. And yes, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, much of the so-called British Caribbean and formerly British Empire countries and territories are very much in the minority by still driving on the left hand side of the road. And that in itself leads to some amusing but mainly quite scary episodes in many peoples´ driving careers.
The very first time I drove overseas was in the US, Pittsburgh to be precise, and it was just a couple of years after Shakin´ Stevens’ top 10 hit. I rented a car one day just to do a bit of sightseeing while my mate (who lived there at the time) went to work. I ordered a “medium size car”. Well, that was my first mistake – it´s a bit like ordering food in the US – it doesn´t really matter what you order you get enough on your plate to feed an entire village. So my “medium size” car was a New Yorker. Now I´m not very tall and I don´t have much of a wingspan but I´d have needed to be an albatross just to reach the passenger door – it was miles away. This car was both wider and longer than the house I was living in at the time! Oh and, of course, I should have known but I didn´t, it was automatic. I now know that an automatic car is the easiest and most stress free of cars to drive, but if you´ve never driven one before or even been in one being driven by someone else, then you have no clue where to even start. And we didn´t have phones with Google on them in those days – so Ginger Gerald, a little shy and embarrassed, had to traipse back into the rental office to ask, in front of a huge line of people, how you drive an automatic car! Well, at least I made someone´s day that day!
My next experience of driving outside of the UK was completely different, almost the opposite. 4 of us were in my brother´s fabulous Volkswagon Beetle heading from Manchester to Madrid for another brother´s wedding. Only two of us were drivers at the time so the owner drove the lions´ share but when he got tired and needed a quick kip (which isn´t so easy with 4 of you in a Vocho, with no aircon, very little space and super noisy) then he passed the key to his little brother - me. Well, we were half way down the West Coast of France and all was going smoothly; Ginger Gerald was feeling pretty cool and confident at the wheel even as we approached a friendly little roundabout. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my brain turned to spaghetti and I couldn´t fathom this roundabout out at all. I got a little panicky over something which surely was not really that complicated – I only had two choices but yes you´ve guessed it, I sailed around that very first roundabout the wrong way! Well, I’m still here so we got lucky and lived to tell the tale – but it just shows how easily it can happen (and how limited and programmed our brains are!). Anyone else done that one – surely not just me?
My first longer stint of overseas driving was when I was living and working in the French Alps in the Winter. We all know, that driving in snow and ice is hazardous enough no matter where you are – but if you are high up in a mountain range then things can be a little more extreme and dangerous. So at the beginning of the Ski season those of us who were being assigned cars were given a course on how to drive in the snow – which was great – and they even warned us against parking overnight under icicles – something I´d never have even thought of but a bunch of my colleagues ended up having to pay the excess to cover icicle damage to the rooves of their car. Something else they trained us on was how to put snow chains on your wheels. I have to say it was a fabulous course and I felt fully prepared to conquer the mountains in my little Renault Clio. As I drove up the mountain it started to snow, and the snow got heavier and the driving and visibility got worse and worse. Eventually, with just about 10kms before getting to the resort, the police were stopping everyone and obliging them to put their snow chains on – no chains, no way through! Well, no problem for Ginger Gerald – I´ve just done the course, I´ve got the certificate and I´ve got brand new chains – this is great! Except, just one minor detail, the course we did was in the nice Renault garage on a warm sunny afternoon down in the valley – now I am having to do it for the first time and for real, I was in a blizzard, it was dark and I was in a huge traffic jam. And just to add to the stress (and something not covered in the course) by the time I got the chains out of their box and laid them out on the ground, my hands were already like blocks of ice and believe me, it takes a lot longer and you tend to swear a lot more and a lot louder!
No such blizzard conditions when driving in Cancún of course! So, driving in México, well, how do I best describe this? Anarchic? Lawless? Shocking? Erratic? I reckon all of those are pretty fitting. As you can just buy a license – you don´t need to bother doing lessons or passing a test or anything like that, oh and if your vision´s not so good don´t worry the authorities are very modern and take an equal opportunities approach: no sight, no worries, you can just drive anyway (did you listen to the podcast episode called Blummin´ Bureaucracy – the bit amount my daughter and me getting our Mexican Driving licenses?). Technically you need to be 15 to apply for and obtain a provisional driving license – but the reality is that you see kids I swear of 12 years old driving round in their parents great big, v8 pick-up trucks. So it´s no great surprise that drivers in México (not all of ´em of course – we don´t do generalizations on GGYLB) but a large number of drivers just do what they want and what they think is best (or most fun) in any given situation. And, typically (and please don´t misinterpret this as me suggesting this is a good thing) if the police stop you because your lights don´t work, or you haven´t got a license or you´ve had a few too many coronas or margaritas, then you can simply hand them a €200 peso note (carefully concealed under your driving license of course) and you´ll be on your way. Sometimes, I´ve heard, a can of coke and a bag of crisps does the trick! No formal fines, no removal of points, no license suspension and definitely no obligatory safe driving courses for repeat offenders.
I could write an entire book on driving situations in México – but I won´t – I´ll just give you one example.
There is a road from Cancún to Playa del Carmen which normally takes about an hour and which is commonly known as the “Carretera de la Muerte” – the Highway of Death. So, as the name might suggest, it´s a dangerous bit of road made, poorly lit at night and made much worse by dangerous driving. One of the problems are the Combis – these are minivans (usually knackered and very old) which can stop and start whenever they fancy it and whenever someone wants picking up or dropping off. They don´t have set stops like buses they just stop, very suddenly and at random. And very rarely do their brake lights work do you have no clue when they may drop their anchor in front of you. The more trips they can do, and with the highest possible average occupancy, the more money the drivers can make so they stack them as full as they possibly can. Some o them, known as the “Express Service” expect you to jump in and out while the thing is still moving! Express indeed! So if you are new to driving in México I highly recommend that you belt up, don´t drive at night and ensure you have at least 4 eyes, including two in the back of your head. And then pray!
I think all over the place it´s got more and more common for entertainers or service providers to ensure you aren´t bored while waiting at red lights. It´s even worse if you´re at the front of the queue because then you feel really obliged to hand over your hard earned dosh to a juggler who can´t juggle or a unicycler who can´t unicycle! But in México, and I guess equally so if not more so in some other countries, you need to have a big heart, open your window and be prepared to be a littler charitable at least some of the time. The young kids selling papers or sweets have probably got next to nothing and everything you can give is a help; the elderly who ask for a coin or two probably desperately need those coins to get themselves something to eat…..but beware, the squeedgie brigade will squirt soap all over your window before you even see them coming and if you don´t immediately show signs of willingness to pay then the soap will remain there – and you are left blind! Not a good situation! So my advice: carry quite a lot of small coins in your car, don´t pretend you can´t see these people when they come to your window, don´t suddenly turn your windscreen wipers on to scare them away – and if they really are talented Circus performers then give ´em a few bob – you´d pay for a Circus ticket wouldn´t you?
When we moved to Mallorca from Cancún, the driving was definitely much, much more disciplined and far less erratic. Generally speaking people kept roughly to the speed limits, stopped at red lights more often than not and didn´t actually try to mow down pedestrians on Zebra crossings just for the fun of it. So all of that felt really good to us – and I very strongly advise against trying to hand over a bit of cash to the Guardia Civil should they stop you. However, not everything about driving here is straight forward. For instance, they have a slightly odd approach to roundabouts. There´s a roundabout near where we live which we navigate daily – we call it the roundabout of death. Now, before you get too worried, I´m pleased to say that to my knowledge nobody has actually died there. This roundabout has two lanes to join and two lanes to leave and is always super busy. No matter what time of day, it´s virtually impossible just to get onto safely so at some point you just have to put your foot down and go for it. If you delay a bit too long then the cars behind you will be on your case blowing their horns and waving their hands around like madpeople, but if you pull out right in front of someone then you have to deal with their anger and maybe the odd unpleasant finger salute too. To add to that, and this is the odd bit and the part that drives me cwazy, drivers are taught in Spain to stick to the right hand lane of roundabouts (that´s the outside lane) no matter where they´re planning to exit. So in theory everyone is in the outside lane but they could be turning right, going straight on, turning left or just doing loops for fun – there´s no way of knowing. And that´s the theory, the reality is that cars are in both lanes and you have even less of a clue about what their exit plans may be! Anyway, it was very clear that this particular roundabout was a nightmare for everyone so, in their great wisdom, the local government road planning department decided to make things a little easier. What they did was to add a third approach lane – but the roundabout itself still only has two lanes and all of the exits still only have 2 lanes. So now, it´s like the start of a race, 3 lanes of revved-up, frustrated and impatient drivers have to race to get onto the roundabout which has just 2 lanes… complete bonkers and far worse than it was in the first place!
Oh and they (that´s the Spanish) love an “on and off junction” on a Motorway. Do you know what I mean by that? You know how in the UK you have one junction to exit a motorway and then another one to join. Nice and easy, no additional or unwanted complexity involved. In Spain oh no – coming on and off motorways is converted into a bit of a sport – a high risk activity Insurance Companies would call it. If you´re leaving the motorway then you have to battle for position with cars joining the motorway, and if your joining then you have to compete with those who are leaving. So all these cars are criss-crossing each other, like an automotive bit of Morris dancing as they move in and out of lanes to get on or off. Who´s going to accelerate and win? Who´s going to brake and lose? Oh, and you only have about 100 metres or so to successfully navigate this particular operation or you´ll simply fail to leave (or join) the motorway and you´ll have to try again at the next junction!
Now here´s a good one – and one that can get you into a bit of trouble. Drivers´ signs mean different things depending where you are. For example, us Brits like flashing our headlights to people when we´re in a good mood and are generously letting them out or into a line of traffic or whatever. But if you´re in Spain or probably most other countries to be honest, and you see someone flash their lights at you – it means get out of the F´ ing way as I´m coming through whether you like it or not! And what about sticking the V´s up at someone who´s just cut you up – in most countries that´s really not going to have the effect you intended (you need the middle finger for that one!). Often in Spain -and I bet this is even worse in Italy or Greece or Turkey – you´re driving behind a car and the driver is waving his hands all over the place, gesticulating away and hardly ever putting his hands on the steering wheel. You´re probably thinking that they´re arguing about some huge family issue or debating the death penalty or about to kill each other - but oh no, they´re probably just deciding what they´re going to have for lunch!
So have we covered off some of the things that drive you absolutely cwazy when you´re driving abroad! As a word of warning – it´s a good idea not only to make sure you know what the laws are and how they differ from what you know, or think you know – but speak to someone who has been taught to drive in that country – they´ll tell you what you´re doing wrong! And watch out for them roundabouts!