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Spanish drivers are better than their reputation. German drivers are annoying with their habits. They drive way too aggressive on the motorways and too slow on normal roads. They're not the worst drivers of course and quite carefully.
I have yet to see a group of really bad drivers in Europe.
For worst drivers, I'd pick the Chinese. Although they weren't extremely terrible either. Hmm.
Location: Segovia, central Spain, 1230 m asl, Csb Mediterranean with strong continental influence, 40º43 N
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ariete
In a country where everyone has a little F1 driver in their hearts, I can definitely say that Finns aren't the most civilised drivers. Ok, we give space (if it suits us), but it can also be taken as an assault on your personality. So screw them, find some other place, I want to play Mika Häkkinen. But anyway, as we are and organised and law-abiding society as a whole, traffic is not very uncivilised either. Unless you find your inner F1 driver. But compared to Sweden or Norway, they are way more polite and jovial than Finnish drivers. It's a stark difference there. This is also proven both by deaths in traffic and F1 or Rallye drivers.
I hope Finns drivers become more civilized every winter when driving in snowy conditions.
Southern Italian drivers just make their own rules, once you learn them, they aren't any more dangerous than any other driver, they are very reactive but a bit too reckless at times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by forgotten username
The thing is that in Italy there are very few traffic cops, and the machines that take a picture of you when you drive too fast (no idea what they are called in English) are usually not activated. Nobody is going to stop you if you want to drive at 180 on the highway.
Autovelox are everywhere, every municipality has its own, all the red dots on this map are all autovelox (by the looks of it, there is probably one every 5 kilometers), the problem is that most drivers know where they are, they just slow down for a minute or two, go past the autovelox and start going at high speeds again:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urania93
I'm not so sure that all north italian are so much better than southern at driving...
If you want, I've found this live webcam in Turin center.
For my tastes the traffic is already too much messy there...
Anyway, about the "souther italians are worse drivers" thing, I will always remember an epic quote of one of my university mates, who is from Sicily. She has the habit to cross the road without looking at the traffic lights, so we said her "ehi, pay attention, do you want a car to ran over you!?". Then she answered, with an absolutely calm voice: "at my place, there is not something like stopping for letting the walkers to cross the road, or to let other cars to pass. It is more the cars that dodge you, and you that dodge them". I've never understood if she was joking or not...
If you really think Turin is chaotic, then you really must go to Naples, i think one about every 3-4 cars in Naples has very clear signs of an incident, there can crazy traffic jams there sometimes, once i went with my relatives the day after Easter (don't know what it's called in English) and it took us 2 hours to make the 5 kilometers that connect the tangenziale (ring road) to the city center.
This pic is old but it speaks volumes about how crazy it can get:
This the Italians are alert and don´t crash too often. Thier biggest danger is tourists who aren´t used to the Italian way of driving. It always takes me a while to get used to it but if you drive like they do it is no problem. I just have to Switch out of German "I have the right of way so I can just floor it and don´t need to think about the others" style.
well said. This is why I can't drive in certain countries because I would normally assume others will be driving like me, which could be fatal.
Southern Italian drivers just make their own rules, once you learn them, they aren't any more dangerous than any other driver, they are very reactive but a bit too reckless at times.
Autovelox are everywhere, every municipality has its own, all the red dots on this map are all autovelox (by the looks of it, there is probably one every 5 kilometers), the problem is that most drivers know where they are, they just slow down for a minute or two, go past the autovelox and start going at high speeds again:
If you really think Turin is chaotic, then you really must go to Naples, i think one about every 3-4 cars in Naples has very clear signs of an incident, there can crazy traffic jams there sometimes, once i went with my relatives the day after Easter (don't know what it's called in English) and it took us 2 hours to make the 5 kilometers that connect the tangenziale (ring road) to the city center.
This pic is old but it speaks volumes about how crazy it can get:
To be honest I've never seen any autovelox thing around here, I'm pretty sure there aren't any on the tangenziale here, or maybe they're hidden. I haven't seen any either on the highway to Florence, nor when going north towards Mantova, but maybe they're more common in Lombardia / Piedmont ?
When I think about Lyon, just between my parents' home in the suburbs and the center there are at least 4 or 5 points where there are autovelox, in just about 15 kilometres. Several times I got caught for driving at 96 km/h (usually because I stopped paying attention for a minute and/or tried to overtake some car) and had to pay 90 euros and lose one point on my license. Seeing how fast people drive here, I really believe nobody ever cares or that it does not happen.
Turin did not strike me as particularly chaotic when I went there, actually I thought it was pretty pleasant, but i drove once in Palermo and it was pretty insane driving overall. Most cars were slightly damaged indeed.
We too have a lot of speeding cameras, the good thing is that 9 of 10 is there just for display. We didn't have the money to actually put cameras in every one, most are empty boxes.
I think I have seen as many overtakes over a solid line in one day in Padania as in one year elsewhere.
Traffic in Italy is terrible, too many cars and too much arrogance...basically anyone has the right to go by car where he wants, who cares of the others. There aren't precedences, there aren't "prohibited park" areas, it's a total mess.
You should go to Catania, there are no rules, only the survival of the fittest.
Greeks are pretty reckless too, I risked being run over countless times in Crete.
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