Foreign driving in foreign lands

Now mostly about non-German roads. When travelling to Strasbourg, we got to the outside of the city, and there were signs for it. But all of a sudden, they just disappeared. Was this city like Bielefeld and didn’t really exist? Or were the French just being lazy and didn’t put any more signs up, thinking that the locals would know the way, anyhow? However, we just headed towards the city-direction… if there were less buildings, we’d turn around, and if there were more crazy drivers, then we’d carry on.

And the French and the Dutch have peculiar traffic lights, when they turn red, it’s normal. But from red to green, it goes… red… green. That’s it. Where’s the warning? I’m sitting there, waiting for them to change, and all of a sudden, it’s changed. It was so sudden, I’m still sitting there waiting for amber!

But the French have the groovy idea of putting li’l miniature traffic lights at eye-level with the drivers at the line. This way, there’s no need to painfully crane your neck over the steering wheel to watch the lights high above the car.

In Switzerland, the Autobahn signs were green, which didn’t prove too much of a problem, even though it’s expected after getting the required Vignette. But in Basel, the signs just do what they want. In this instance, and thankfully it was evening and all quiet, I was driving around the place, trying to find a decent place to park. I managed to drive down a one-way street…well, two of them. And I managed to drive in the middle of a pedestrianised square, which its only exit was via a tram stop at the other end.

The reasons for these were that the signs for the one-way streets weren’t really visible. You had to turn the corner of them to actually see them. And about the square, without warning, the street just stopped, or did a U-Turn. There was no indication of this, and if it’s a pedestrian-only square, then there should be bollards, a fence, or a kerb, at least.

As far as signage and road markings go, I think Belgium and the Netherlands are the best. Denmark was good, too… their signs were all in red. Reminded me of MOD a lot.

But one of the things I do miss about being back home is driving on proper roads, with proper signs and on the right side of the road!