OV9

I'm in Brazil right now, visiting the wife's family for the first time. We're in Campo Grande, the capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

In short, I've never seen driving quite like it. Red lights seem optional, particularly if you're a bus or your on two wheels. Lane changes are random and often and usually without a life-saver. The roads are a patchwork quilt of repairs with pot holes you could lose a small child in. And the cars are eclectic and spanning many decades of production. And that's before I get started on my wife's step mother's driving.

Where else is as bonkers as this?

1. Morocco, where the majority road signs and lights appear to be optional, and drivers don't use their mirrors (many are just folded in) - if you hear a horn when you start to move then someone else is there.

2. Moscow, which is exactly as you'd expect from watching Russian dash cam vids. At lights they will turn 3 lanes into 4 or even 5 (my colleague advised that lane markings are "just guidance"). Everybody slices everybody else up. If there is a queue on the single-lane slip road exiting the motorway, someone will drive around it to make a second lane, even if that means two wheels up on a verge. Nobody bats an eyelid and once initiated, this second lane will be filled within seconds. If the queue for a motorway exit is backed up onto the motorway, they will drive just past said exit it and chuck a u-turn in order to then shove-in from the opposite direction. Reversing up the other side of the road to skip a queue. Driving along pavements to skip a queue. It's nuts.

Thailand was pretty bad when I went there (albeit this was 10 years ago so might have improved by now..?). Bangkok was crazy busy and people just seemed to do what they liked.

I know when I was riding a moped round in Phuket, there didn't seem to be any rules other than had to wear a helmet. My friend got fined about £6 for not having one on. The guy in front of him was completely drunk, and just being fined again for not wearing a helmet.

I've come to the conclusion that many, many countries have similarly wild drivers. India is chaotic, anything goes in Cambodia and El Salvador is the only place I've been taken from a vehicle by police and searched at gunpoint. @Brannen riding mopeds whilst wasted seems to be standard practice in Thailand. They're all crazy in their own way.

The craziest vehicle goes to Peru, in the jungle outside of Tarapoto, when I needed to get a lift and there were no proper roads, just mud tracks. They managed to get hold of the local jungle taxi, who was playing europop at high volume, even when his car wasn't moving


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I’d agree with Moscow.

I didn’t drive but several crazy Taxi journeys confirm it…

Cuba is interesting, as even though the roads outside towns aren't busy you can be travelling along a 'motorway' at 60+ and it suddenly becomes a dirt track where the money ran out, or avoiding donkey carts coming towards you when you are in the fast lane.
Or night time driving in more tropical areas where people sleep in the middle of the road...

It's also the only place where I've had an armed drunk policeman pull me over and demand a lift to the next town!

I concur with riding mopeds in Phuket. Utterly mental but great fun.

The driver of the Tuk-tuk I was in one night had to pull over because he said he couldn’t see. He got in the back with me, his mate came out of a house and took the wheel. Then he explained he couldn’t see because he was so pissed.

Italy - goes without saying. Their confidence is awe-inspiring.

Saudi Arabia was interesting
- 3 wide overtakes coming the other ways round mountain hairpins
- random cars going in every direction along the edges of the main carriageways, or just deciding to randomly go a different way in front of you
- camels. just, there, really
- camels in the bag of pickups

I also recall a minibus driver in Thailand who seemed intent on being the fastest thing on the road, taking us to an airport, overtaking everything on whatever side he could.

Belgium.

Poland is pretty mental, my old work insisted on a driver. They apparently used to put crashed cars on spikes on the side of the road with crashed cars on display to raise awareness. Still cars passing on the wrong side of the road etc.

I found Belgium to have the worst traffic ever (Brussels).

Sulawesi (in Indonesia) was the most mental I've ever experienced. Loudest music had most right of way, petrol bought in bottles by the roadside and the number of seats was in no way an indication of how many people that could fit in the vehicle.

nuttinnew wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:33 pmBelgium.

Probably, yeah!

It's a strange one, as Italy is probably more crazy, but they can drive...whereas the Belgians seem to be shockingly bad at driving.

Driving in the Philippines is pretty crazy. I love the way anything goes and you see people do stupid stuff like park for a short while on a junction, blocking every direction and it's considered acceptable conduct, with people barely getting frustrated or angry. Here it would probably result in a punch up of some sort.

Basically, the further east or south you go from the U.K and the first bit of mainland Europe, the shitter the driving gets.

Bangladesh by a long way. Hi nice out of the towns and cities it’s all very much Enshalla, god willing.

I’ve seen the following….

Elephants hit by a train.
Bus on top of a car.
Bus upside down in a rice paddy.
Motorbike with 5 people on.
Motorbike with 2 people and 4 goats.
MASSIVELY overloaded lorries.
A lorry which had its engine or gearbox fail, rip out of the engine bay and when the lorry started rolling back it looked like
It had ejected the thing forwards.
Various crashes.
A fuel tanker get ripped from the tractor unit.
Rotovators used, commonly, as light trucks.
Tuk tuks of all shapes and sizes.
Cranes repainted with whatever load you wish to lift

Dave!

Marv wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:44 pm

nuttinnew wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:33 pmBelgium.

Probably, yeah!

It's a strange one, as Italy is probably more crazy, but they can drive...whereas the Belgians seem to be shockingly bad at driving.

Fun fact: in Belgium, you don't have to attend driving classes given by professionals. A family member can register as your tutor and as long as you pass the exam, you'll get your license. Also, Belgium was one of the last countries in Europe to introduce the actual driving of a motor vehicle as part of the exam.

It's a well known fact that if you fail your license exam in Luxembourg 5 times, you will still get it but will have to use white plates with red lettering.

You don't even need to have your family member/friend/other registered as a tutor in the U.K. - so long as they're over 21 and had the appropriate licence for 3 years then they can teach you. (Though you don't even need to have had any actual lessons, professional or not in theory!)

Vietnam was probably the craziest. Ho Chi Minh City is insane for everything. Families of 4 on a single moped (dad driving, toddler stood on the footplate, mum holding baby on the pillion), delivery drivers carrying stupid loads on mopeds (I saw a guy transporting an 8 foot glass aquarium).

Cambodia wasn't too bad, but this was coming straight from Vietnam so I guess it's all relative.