It’s Ed talking--Millie insists that I say that from the outset. Let’s also establish something else: I love driving here; as a visitor or temporary Romanian, I love being here. Today, some suits and ties from the Embassy came to the school to give a must-attend presentation to all of us expats who are driving around in embassy-licenced VWs. In tow was the top cop in the Romanian traffic division. It was essentially a mini-course on defensive driving, and a strong encouragement to, above all, be a, quote, girly man, and think deferentially in any confrontational traffic situation. I offer here, from my own observations and from this lecture, some driving instructions that seem to be Romanian-endorsed in terms of popular usage, but not advisable to us expats.
How to wait for a train to pass at a controlled railway crossing:
If you consider yourself an important Romanian in an important BMW or Mercedes or any SUV, then surely you deserve to jump the queue and pass the rest of the vehicles in line, and form a new line to the left of all the waiting vehicles, in the lane of the vehicles that will soon be streaming by, once the silly train has vacated the crossing. And if you are REALLy important, then, go ahead and form a THIRD line, beside those other important people. Of course, as soon as the gates raise up to release the traffic, you will gun your big engine and be across the tracks in jig time, ahead of everyone else, and be on your merry way. This could work, except that on the other side of the slow moving train, in the oncoming lanes, the same thing is happening! So when the train is finally past, we now we have three lanes of traffic, all facing each other! Imagine the testosterone! The honking cacophony! What fun!
How to make an air pollution statement:
If you are driving a “Roman” (brand name) dump truck or bus, you automatically make a statement re pollution—you belch an impressive black cloud of airborne filth every time that you accelerate even a little bit, as you must do in any stop-and-go traffic situation (virtually the only traffic situation in Bucharest). However, if you drive an aging under-powered Dacia (think Soviet Renault), you quite need to stomp that accelerator to get past the slow-moving person directly in front of you if you plan to put some serious petrol fog into the air. But if you drive one of those important clean-burning modern (see above) BMW/Mercedes/SUV types, then you REALLY need to stomp it to make any kind of statement re pollution and burning more than your share of available oxygen and finite amounts of hydro carbons. And don’t they just! We need to shut our windows daily to the otherwise fresh air.
How to turn left: (This advice is for us expats.)
Above all signal from WAY back, check yer mirror and check over yer shoulder!! Part of the Romanian way of life is to jump a queue, and there’s bound to be one of those (see above) jumpers just passing you in a non-existent third lane of traffic between the two marked lanes, just as you are about to turn left into your driveway or your destination du jour. And while you would be in the legal “right”, the Embassy officials continued to caution us, it’s never a good idea to be bloody right or dead right!
How to enjoy driving in Romania:
Just get in there, drive defensively, take some cautiously calculated risks, think ahead, and marvel at the textbook cases of traffic survival. Be patient, go with the flow, and use your mantra: “This is Romania!”
Still to come: How to pick up your kids from school; how to register a complaint with the owner of a parked car.
Ed H
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