I've been pondering this for years. They are entirely different.
In the UK the law is everything. Drivers believe that if what they are doing is legal, then little additional care is needed and they have an absolute right to do it. Drivers have no tolerance for actions of other drivers which they perceive as illegal.
There is a considerable amount of courtesy on the roads.
Drivers see no need to try to anticipate other peoples' illegal actions, there is no tolerance or allowance for mistakes. Road rage is common to one degree or another. All road users of one type hate all users of another - car - vs. cycle, car vs. truck, etc. etc.
In Chile, though pretty true of Argentina, Brazil and Peru also, there is little regard for the law and no expectation that anybody will be following the law if it is inconvenient. No drivers are bothered by another driver doing something illegal. At all. The citizen police and youtube warriors don't exist.
There is no courtesy. Nobody lets anybody out ever for any reason. Consequently it's always a matter of who blinks first, someone does and retaliates by blowing his horn at the person who didn't. It ends there.
Drivers have a greater awareness of everything going on around them. Because there is no expectation of law adherence and thus predictability, people look around far more.
However, the most unacceptable behaviour is to inconvenience someone else, even if what you are doing is entirely legal. Horn blowing is like the national anthem, though actual road rage is comparatively rare.
There is no more rivalry between users of a different type than there is users of a single type.
Between Chile and the UK the two styles of driving are quite incompatible. It's far easier to die on the roads in South America, but that's usually because of the high speed, poorly thought out, roads in the large gaps between cities. The other day driving back to Santiago in the middle of the afternoon, about 400km, I passed 4 large accidents where lanes were blocked and people had been injured.
p.s. generalisations rule ok.
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I like Southern Italy, especially around Naples, only one rule applies, dont hit anyone (car, cyclist motorbike, pedestrian) hard.
Worse was Southern Malaysia, although they are marked, lanes dont exist, sometimes even the road surface is not vital to faster progress than the slow overloaded bus or lorry in front. Left, right, someones courtyard, petrol station forecourt, even stretches of jungle that are not too thick are valid overtaking paths. Someone coming the other way is no valid reason not to use their lane.
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I think the worst I have driven in was India. Utterly ridiculous. It's not that they do dangerous stuff, well not just that, it's that they do stuff they cannot possibly survive unless someone else swerves out of the way or brakes hard.
In and around the few roads in the Amazon it's simple; the bigger you are the more right of way you have and the less alert you need to be.
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>> I think the worst I have driven in was India. Utterly ridiculous. It's not that
>> they do dangerous stuff, well not just that, it's that they do stuff they cannot
>> possibly survive unless someone else swerves out of the way or brakes hard.
>>
....elephants and camels wandering along on dual carriageways (not to mention the sacred cows).
I didn't drive when I was in India, and I was very glad of that (and that's speaking as someone who has done a lot of driving in Belgium ;-) )
It is about the only place I've been where I've really felt entirely uncomfortable with the concept of driving.
Morocco was interesting, albeit for different reasons. The inevitable police presence on the traffic lights in Marrakech were prone to pulling their guns on you if you infringed the white stop line by even a centimetre, either when stopping or starting, and on the roads South, there were always rumours of Polisario ambushes, albeit they would have been rather far from "home". (Morocco was very militarised at the time).
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Discussed before, but as someone who has spent a lifetime driving around this septic isle, I see huge differences even on this tiny island.
North of Preston and south of Birmingham it's more or less ok, and acceptable levels of driving courtesy abound, even in the metropolops, provided you kind of get on with it and make your intentions clear.
In the mean spirited section in between, they seem to be very much under the influence of the chips culturally installed on both shoulders.
;-)
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The best word to describe Polish drivers is 'desperate'.
Desperate to be one car in front. Desperate to be away from the lights first. Desperate to be closer to the guy in front. Desperate to overtake something.
Useless, brainless and clueless are also very apt.
As is 'incapable' (parking) and 'absolutely no idea' (roundabouts). Oh and 'comical' for indicating. They'll indicate along a gentle bend or to pass a grid or lamp post.
As drivers, collectively, I detest every single one of them all.
The best part of driving is over the bridge into Germany, a monumental relief to be among proper drivers.
My daughter does all the family driving and I love it. Six months of experience and she already pees over all of them.
And the stats pretty much back me up. They are the second worst EU member state for deaths per 100k and we are (pre Brexit) the second best.
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>> And the stats pretty much back me up. They are the second worst EU member
>> state for deaths per 100k and we are (pre Brexit) the second best.
Wuss.
Deaths per 100k vehicles
UK - 5.7
Poland - 13.5
Chile - 51.1
Deaths per 100k population
UK - 2.9
Poland - 7.7
Chile - 12.4
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Based on those numbers, it now makes more sense of why you choose to drive around in an unfeasably large pick up truck thingy, but it seems rather less encouraging of the wisdom of the electric scooter perhaps. Yin yang thing I guess?
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>> why you choose to drive around in an unfeasibly large pick up truck thingy
I would not drive around in anything small, you just get bullied by trucks and buses. And nothing gets out of your way and everything tries to push in front of you, often dangerously. Essential for comfortable travel is an f.off big truck with scratched and dented bumpers front and back, both covered in various colours of other people's car paint. And mine is impressively battle scarred.
As for the Scooter, because they are legal here they are not very often found on roads or pedestrian paths. Santiago has got a pretty good cycle path infrastructure. Wandering traffic warden type Wombles empowered to issue on the spot £80 fines for just about anything keeps the population reasonably in control.
Also, in the UK if you get something wrong on a scooter you pss lots of people off. In Chile you get splatted. It focusses the mind.
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>>I would not drive around in anything small, you just get bullied...
That kind of happens in a lot of places. I notice a measurably more negative difference in the attitude and behaviour of other drivers when I use my son's little car.
Once, many years ago, I had rather too ambitiously pulled out to overtake a truck on an uphill section of autostrada in Italy in a hired Panda. The wee car was struggling a bit and I had decided to abandon the overtake, but the driver of the big Volvo behind me deliberately pushed my car with his front bumper until I was past the truck while simultaneously gesticulating and shouting.
Handy enough short term solution in the end I suppose but a bit scary.
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>>the driver of the big Volvo behind me deliberately pushed my car with his front bumper until I was past the truck
I think I would have given serious consideration to the idea of crapping myself.
>>I notice a measurably more negative difference in the attitude and behaviour of other drivers when I use my son's little car.
I think I gain significant advantage because of the vehicle size. However, what absolutely stops anybody being silly is the large bumpers with dents, scratches and car pain on them.
One of the bumper dents is public transport bus yellow. Very handy.
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>>
>> One of the bumper dents is public transport bus yellow. Very handy.
>>
....has Zero been over for a visit....?
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>> >>
>> >> One of the bumper dents is public transport bus yellow. Very handy.
>> >>
>> ....has Zero been over for a visit....?
No the bus is still on the road.
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Re India, once when I was in Delhi, I asked my taxi driver how he managed to put up with the driving, traffic and general chaos. His response was that you needed 3 things - good brakes, a good horn and good luck! Very chaotic, they were gifted at creating 8 lanes of traffic out of 3 but all seemed pretty chilled with each other, lots of accidents but none too serious that I saw I guess the speeds were so slow.
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I found driving in Europe (mainly France, Germany and the Netherlands) fine, save for one way systems - always a pain when you have to try to figure out your exit.
In Birmingham on the other hand, I had to bail when my Uber went the wrong way up a one way street!
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I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but a quick search doesn't throw anything up.
I was in Bangalore to give a two day presentation and sat in my hotel room making some changes to the presentation materials on my laptop. The desk was next to the open doors to a juliette balcony overlooking the gardens and a busy 3-way intersection on Mahatma Gandhi Road.
While pondering the best way to explain techie stuff (Unix kernel updates) to a mixed audience I kept gazing out of the doors watching the traffic at the intersection.
I was amazed by all the motorbikes which ignored the red lights but just carried on and weaved through crossing traffic without getting splatted. I suppose stopping and starting again isn't a trivial exercise when you're 4-up with wife and kids.
I was even more amazed by the cows, who were not wandering aimlessly but definitely had a destination in mind, and would stop at a red light and wait for it to turn green before heading off again.
Not really contenders for the Traffic Light Grand Prix though with only 1 cowpower under the cud.
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All the dogs use pedestrian, light controlled crossings in Santiago. For a while I wondered how they knew how to do that, until I realised the obvious answer; all the ones that don't are dead.
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Some of the safest roads and driving in the world is in the UK.
But sheet happens
My Dog training coach has just (two hours ago) had her brand new Skoda Kodiak written off by an Ambulance driver who fell asleep on the A1.
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That will be difficult for her to bear.
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>> That will be difficult for her to bear.
>>
RUDDY BRILLIANT.
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Must have caused a mountain of paperwork.
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If you even dare ask if the old bill turned up in a panda, I am going to drive up there (i know where you live) and steal all your door mirrors. All 5 of them.
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....you're a bit grizzly this morning...
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At least the ambulance didn't hit a mini bus full of cubs or something, and your friend should be able to claw back her excess under the circumstances.
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... you're just extracting the ursine, now....
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>> At least the ambulance didn't hit a mini bus full of cubs or something, and
>> your friend should be able to claw back her excess under the circumstances.
On a serious note, her vehicle is required for work and such a vehicle is required to enable her to take her 3 working/sporting dogs as tools. She has, sensibly, got full business car insurance and a legal assistance policy who have appointed a claims handler. A BMW X5 is on the way to act as a short term vehicle, and as it will take 4-6 months to get a new for old car (its only just over a week old) then some from of near term wheels be required - a van will do.
The rear hatch, rear offside bumper, C post, rear door, B post, front door, A post and front wing are all badly done in, so its a write off. The ambulance nearside front wing is done up to the bulkhead.
Ambulance driver admitted he had a micro-sleep at the end of the 12 hours shift, His crewmate mentioned its the second ambulance he has written off, and the police cautioned the driver at the scene.
So, while I usually disagree with trying to cane money out the NHS, I suspect a large but valid and fair claim will be forthcoming (I guess they self insure)
On another note the dogs were all caged. The rear window in the Skoda has gone, and had the dogs been lose they would have been all over the A1 in panic in a heartbeat.
Dogs should always travel caged or secured in some way.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 6 Aug 21 at 12:21
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>> On another note the dogs were all caged. The rear window in the Skoda has
>> gone, and had the dogs been loose they would have been all over the A1
>> in panic in a heartbeat.
>>
>> Dogs should always travel caged or secured in some way.
>>
A couple of years ago we were on our way back from France in the C8 towing a caravan along the M20. As we approached Junction 8, positioned in lane 2 to consider overtaking a Polish artic in lane 1, a truck entered lane 1 from the slip road. A Passat estate in lane 2 was just passing the cab of the Polish truck as it moved out to give the incoming truck some room. As if it were a well-rehearsed stunt, the Passat ended up pinned sideways across the front bumper of the Polish cab. The artic stopped in lane 2, a helpful van driver stopped in lane 1 and I stopped on the hard shoulder. The driver and passenger we escorted to the hard shoulder and gave them blankets from the caravan. The woman was going on about her dogs which seemed to be rampaging around inside the Passat. If they had been in cages or strapped in, they certainly weren't now. And these dogs looked big.
Would I go and rescue her dogs please? I didn't think that a stranger trying to get two frightened animals out of their car and walk them to their owners, on a live motorway, was within my abilities. I'm not a dog person; if they had got loose, things would have quickly got a lot worse with the incident having taken 2 live lanes out of action. The dogs, although maybe distressed, were safer in the car, with the length of an artic between them and another accident. I said no, at which point the woman became very emotional and, between sobs, fixed me with a glare probably reserved for axe murderers.
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>> ....you're a bit grizzly this morning...
Guess he could try some yogi classes...
Ok, I'll stop now.
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>Ok, I'll stop now.
Yes, you'd better. Before you make a Boo-Boo.
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1500Km (lots off road) in Vietnam tuaght me a lot. No quarter given by any other road user, animal, human or vehicular outside the cities. Life seemed pretty cheap. Hanoi was on another level. We road into the city on a Sunday (no different to any other day) and it was awesome...UK Govt talks about the hierarchy of the roads, it was pretty graphic there. Once in the city centre it seemed to flow quite organically. I'll try to load some of my helemet camera footage later.
I rode around 40 miles the day after I got home - it was so smooth and safe.
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Bradford can be interesting.
Dodging the locals in their hired Lamborghinis & Maseratis when they swap drivers every 30 minutes or so.
Not to mention the helmetless quad bike riders, no sign of a border collie, delivering Class A.
Cars undertaking on pavements, ignoring red lights, racing down Leeds Road....doesn’t really matter because most are on cloned plates. Those which aren’t have been stolen and when the occupants bail they’re rarely caught because the BiB cant understandably run fast enough with all their body armour.
Keighley isn’t far behind and the Aire Valley trunk road is great for watching cars racing one another.
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If anyone is interested in the antics of Police Interceptors around the Bradford area I recommend 'Ben Pearson Police Interceptors on Yotube.
Ben Was part of the Ch 5 Documentary Police Interceptors. He retired on ill health. He wears is heart on his sleeve and gives his story warts and all. He describes his mental condition as "a rucksack which was constantly being filled but needed to be unpacked."
Last edited by: Fullchat on Thu 5 Aug 21 at 19:27
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Driving attitudes in different places - Zero
