Driving Experience

Tori seems somewhat appreciative that I'm driving so far. It's actually pretty fun, it uses the type of aggression we usually use bike riding. If you weren't into cars it might seem a bit much; it's pretty aggressive by our standards. And I'm appreciative to have a navigatress.

The toll highways are 2 or three lanes wide. The speed difference between lanes is probably 30kph on average. Trucks and crap cars (Ford Ka, 1980's Citroens, etc.) will go 90-100, normal French/Italian cars 120-130, and anything from Germany (or the odd Alpha Romeo) is 160 or more. That sounds kind of stupid to say, but that's basically just straight observation of what we've seen so far.

Some places have road markings for following distances, because even at 150, people only seem to leave a car length between. There's chevron style arrows that point up the road, and the signs basically tell you that if you can't see one in front of you, AND one behind the car in front of you, you're too close. For the record, they're probably 2 car lengths apart. We've made sure as newbies to include at least 1-2 hours of driving in rush hour each night after the sun sets, just for shits and giggles. We're probably safe for being a certified long term couple since this hasn't really caused any disagreement. There's nothing quite like doing 150 in the fast lane, then being told you need to exit off the ramp on the right across 3 lanes of traffic (spaced at least a car length apart) in 200m.

Our first tank of gas (not empty) was €67 or about $100. Pretty heft for a little 4 cylinder mini wagon.

I like to continuous motion traffic circles offer. They felt a bit odd the first 7 minutes out of the airport, especially when people want to pass in the motion of the circle. I think we've come decently far though as tonight there was a triple stage circle (cut one circle out of an Audi symbol), with construction blocking off part, and the middle one running under a bridge so you couldn't see ahead, yet we managed to get through on try one of our compound manouevre. I'm somewhat happy.

The contrasts faced driving here are much greater than at home. Cities don't really have a grid system due to the layout inherited from pre-auto days. Not too hard on it's own, but combine that with downtown streets being one-ways mostly since they're so narrow, and it's hard to double back to where you should be based on logic alone since the grid your mind could in theory rely on isn't there.

From 150km/h roads to cities so tight you need to concentrate hard just to make corners around buildings, cars, etc. with your paint in tact, it's pretty entertaining. I especially like super narrow roads downtown, 2 way traffic, where it's apparently totally acceptable to leave your car in one lane, turn the hazard lights on, and go do some errands. Picture Steven Avenue, but 2 way, with an expextation of 30-40kph. Then one lane is gone, so the people behind the stopped car get to do daredevil passes into oncoming. I would have sat behind until the guy came back, but the lady in front of me was probably 70, and she had the balls to get it done, so I pretty much had to follow suit. You know the roads are narrow when we've used the "auto-down" feature on both front windows more than once to quicly reach out and fold in the mirrors.

As for navigation, here's props to the Navigatress herself. "Go left, er I mean right". Yes we still have all the paint on our bumpers. My other favourite one needs a little setup. Picture a road with a Y, but of course the "intersection" is really a traffic circle. We're approaching from the bottom of the Y. "Just go straight". Sure thing pumpkin, straight as an arrow. The third best, while applying supreme concentration to the "list of nice places to stay" book (which is finding us the historic B&B things), goes like this:
Erik: we just passed N231, so we're basically at the intersection of A26 and N231 heading south.
Tori: ok. We want to turn right on N237.
Erik: (picture squealing tires here as N237 comes up fairly quick at Eurospeed).
Tori: picture the hairdo a little ruffled and eyes wide as she raises her eyes from the book.

Passing: Tori's book from the library says that reckless passing is the norm. Maybe it's just confusion with the signs. There's a sign with 2 cars side by side in a circle that I keep seeing. In my brain this says "passing ok here". But then you find yourself in a blind corner, and when you exit, there's the same sign but with a diagonal line through it. In my brain that would mean "no passing here". But why have a passing sign going into a sharp, blind corner that allows passing? Tori and have figured out that two cars side by side in a circle means "no passing", and when the circle is crossed out, it means "not no-passing". Right-o. Just like how room 123 was on the second floor that was really the third floor.

It's funny, I just read that per capita, Portugal's crash rate is the highest in the EU. It also has quotes that mean so much more now after a few days on the road "posted speed limits are viewed by drivers as minimum requirements" and "speed bumps are always dealt with by shifting to the other side of the road rather than slowing down".

It does at least say that there's very little road rage, very little horn usage, and that mistakes you make are likely to blend into general traffic mayhem. So true! I think they fly jr. high kids to the Deerfoot during rush hour for warmup.