Not for the Faint of Heart

Bet you thought this post would be about something horrible like bull-fighting, but no, it is about the perfectly ordinary daily activity of driving a car. Because I have to move from patient home to patient home, I have to drive a lot, so here is what I have learnt about driving in Spain so far.

PARKING THE CAR

It is perhaps no coincidence that the words 'aparcar' (to park) and 'abandonar' (to abandon) both start with an A, since a lot of Spanish drivers appear to be unable to distinguish between parking and abandoning their vehicles. We ourselves (as a joke initially) now mainly refer to parking the car as abandoning it. Cars are abandoned on pedestrian crossings, in bus stops, on street corners, on roundabouts and left double parked. Double parking is very common and most mornings I have to drive past at least half a dozen double parked cars in the main street of the nearest town to get to my early morning patient. These are not delivery vans, which could be expected at that time of the day, they are ordinary cars abandoned in order to purchase bread, newspapers, cigarettes etc. I have been told that double parking is allowed as long as it does not obstruct the flow of traffic, which of course it always does :) But, they do leave on their hazard warning lights, so you can at least see they are there

MOPEDS

There appear to be millions of those, all owned by 12-year old helmet-less riders. These weave in and out of the traffic with complete disregard for their own safety and the overwhelming confidence of the young that they cannot possibly die or injure themselves. Miraculously they tend to get away with it most of the time.

DIRECTION INDICATION

Que? Never heard of that in Spain. I am fairly sure it is not included in standard driving lessons, since no-one bothers to indicate. If you are behind a car and it does indicate, it is 99% certain that the car is being driven by a foreign driver. Never ever ever believe that the car that is indicating will indeed go where it indicates it will, because it most likely will just go straight or turn into the opposite direction to the way it indicates. After all the guessing game is far more interesting than ordinary driving, get used to it.

SPEED

Drive as fast as your car will let you. Drive as fast as possible up to junctions and be almost affronted if a car happens to be passing, since they are making you brake. That seems to be the general idea anyway - and I have now got used to trying to drive a bit further out from the curb so that when a car does push its nose into my path I will miss it (just) - as long as there is no traffic coming from the opposite lane at the same time. Or, and this is just as common, drive as if your car is made of porcelain, when you go over one of the innumerable speed-humps in the road, try to stop in second and then take off again. Do this over every speed hump and soon you will have a two kilometre queue behind you - but persevere and keep doing it anyway - just because you can :))

RAIN

We tend to get all our rain in one big 'lump'. Because most of the time it does not rain in our bit of Spain (even though we are on the plain) the roads cannot cope with rain. The drains do not work, which causes innumerable problems, particularly when driving. The surface is then greasy and very easy to lose control of the car. Drivers here are not told about the increase in stopping distance (something we tediously had to learn off by heart to pass the driving test in the UK) and don't take it into consideration. Great care on rainy days please, unless you like water skiing in your car. Most drivers here seem to love it.

PEDESTRIANS

Pedestrians have an absolute right of way in Spain, and even if they cross between two zebra crossings, you are supposed to give way to them :) Zebra crossings appear every 25 m or so, but most people ignore them, preferring to cross where they come out of the shop to get to their double-parked car. A lot of zebra-crossings are within a meter of the corner, which is very silly, as when you have just turned the corner you are still moving and there is the zebra crossing. So far I have managed to avoid hitting pedestrians, but more luck than driving skill. It is one thing I would change really, the position of the zebra crossings in relation to the corners of streets and roundabouts.

TRAFFIC WARDENS

Do not exist in Spain. If they did, they would need one wheelbarrow load of ticket books each day. Now there's an idea for raising some new taxation!!

No matter how dangerous the roads are though in Spain, apparently Portugal is even worse. My advice is, if you are a hesitant driver, do not drive in Spain. Never buy a new car in Spain or import one, a battered second hand car is fine. Most cars here get dents in them very quickly because of other car's doors being banged into them, parallel parked cars hitting them front and back, and general chaos on the road. Having said that, when they do have little scrapes, there does not seem to be the animosity I have witnessed on British road in similar situations. Mainly both drivers just look at the damage in amazement, and then go home, no exchange of insurance, no-one plans on having the damage repaired, no big deal really.