Well i am not saying that we do not stop at Stop signs, in fact we never do run one, if the police sees you running a stop you can prepare you lose some points and pay some money but even if so as i said i can imagine what i said above happening too frecuently

I'd learned to handle with roundabouts while making my license 20 years ago. The town Hannover, where I lived was the German town with the most big roundabouts.
Strange, but roundabouts were getting more and more popular in Germany, often on crossing on country-roads, to slow down the traffic and avoid accidents - but these big roundabouts of Hannover were all built back to crossings with traffic lights or roundabouts with traffic lights.

"The" roundabout-country is Great Britain. Between the big ones as linked above and real tiny one (the smallest middle, I'd seen, had a diameter of 1 meter), you have a plenty of them.

This is really hard for people, coming from the European continent, at first to learn to drive on the left side and then these many roundabouts.
When we go on vacations to Scotland, we usually take the ferry from Ijmuiden/NL to Newcastle. The 5 roundabouts there, to reach the main road up to North, are quite ugly (the first one, between terminal, shopping mall and pool-park is just for training). Outside the town it's going better.

Some tourists don't rech more than the first roundabouts. My wife work in the claim-department of a car-insurance. Sometimes she had accident-reports from GB, where the people have crashed their car just at the first British roundabout after the ferry-terminal.

So when me an my friends have bought one K 70 and wrecked two more at the Skoda-dealer nearby Kingston-upon-Hull, he also offered us some doors from a German K 70, he had wrecked a long time ago. It was also smashed in a roundabout after less than 5 kilometers on British ground.

Eeeh, you must separate between the Europeans, their style if driving is sometimes different. For the most countries you have your prejudices. Some we had presented in our "European"-thread.

Yes, people from Spain, Italy and France are driving different than Germans, Dutch or Scandinavians. The British drivers are often much politer and relaxter than Europeans from the continent. Otherwise I'd seen British drivers, driving like idiots on German or Durch streets. Perhaps they were young soldiers, stationated somewhere over here.

Germans have the reputation to drive fast, agressive and bossily. But sometimes Dutch ones aren't better...

Sorry Antoine , but Belgians does really have a bad reputation in their neighbour-countries. So in the meaning of chaotic and anarchistic drivers, which don't think further. Indeed, I'd seen several very strange drivers, when I'd been there. My uncle, who live since over 15 years close to Brussels is still mad about the "Native drivers" over there. He live close to the invisible inner-Belgian "border" between the Flemish (Dutch speaking) and the Wallonish (French speaking) parts. Really, if a Flemish Belgian is entering the Wallonie, he drives different than "at home". The behaviour of drivers from Brussels is similar to the Parisien ones - but a bit more aggressive. so my uncle uses the train daily to avoid damages of his car.
He told me, when I was driving over there "On country roads, especially the narrower, drive always in the middle! Belgians are always make the wildest tries to pass you. Avoid the crash with the passing car, if you blocade it's way."
I've done so - because it was neccessary. Yes, on a very small country road to his village, less than 1 km long, the drivers behind me had tried to passing me. This could have been bad, because at the half distance I had to stop and turn left in a real small private road.

I've also heard the rumour, that in Belgian you can drive as you want, because there aren nearly no police-controls. But this is not really correct, am I right, Antoine?


It's a fact, that in Germany several drivers are breaking the traffic-laws, because the fines over here were mostly much lower than in the neighbour-countries. Even if you are catched by the police, you just need a tricky lawyer to survive the court hearing with only some payment, but no harder punishment. Yes, sometiems you can read in the newspaper about really hard punishments by traffic-delicts, but these are mostly exceptions.

Swedish friends have told me, that the rules in Norway ar extremely strict. More than 30 km/h over the speed limit (only 90 km/h on highways) and you'll go in prison without any discussion.

P.S: Max: it is possible to pass this place on foot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_l%27%C3%89toile
I've made it (while pulling my screaming wife by hand

Just go stringht on and look in the faces of the drivers. No running, no stopping and everything will be fine .

Oh man, that looks like a nightmare I wouldn't go near that place on foot or in a car.

Hence my "european-latin way of driving", I included these countries, as well as the south of Belgium



Actually most of the people have a bad reputation in their neighbor countries, here it is French people mostly. And within France, it is people from other departments.
This is often due to the fact that someone who is not in his country is easily distracted and lost. On the other hand, when you drive on a road that you know, the "tourists" are really annoying for you



As fast as you want, you mean? Well it depends where, usually the points where cameras are are well known.
There is more controls in Flanders than in Wallonia. And recently it was discovered that due to lack of budget, many of the camera-boxes in Wallonia did actually not contain cameras (how stupid is this? )

Anyway I always respect speed limits. But I keep the 50 km/h limit of the city in roundabouts too, why slow down in these?



If you get caught for more than 20 or 30 km/h over the limit in Belgium you lose your license for at least one week. If you get caught...

Ditto
But I went to the middle of that place: there is an underground tunnel for pedestrian who do not want to play Russian roulette

One of those that I fear the more in Brussels is Meiser place:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=place+meiser,bruxelles,belgium&sll=- 37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.741627,97.294922&ie=UTF8&ll=50.855031,4.398276&spn=0.001322,0- .002969&t=k&z=19

There are few other awful ones, like:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=chaussee+de+waterloo,bruxelles,- belgium&sll=50.826825,4.3445&sspn=0.001323,0.002969&ie=UTF8&ll=50.826877,4.34462- 1&spn=0.001323,0.002969&t=k&z=19
which does not work like usual roundabouts... and has traffic lights (or if it is not that one, there is another one in that area)

Reminds me of that day in 1993, when I was in Bologna and had to wait a few hours at the main station. I left the station and wanted to take a walk into the city - but they wouldn't let me pass the zebra crossing. No way! 5 minutes, 10, 20, 30 minutes, impossible to reach the other side of the street without becoming torn apart by at least three cars. Everybody was there! Supposedly every Fiat Uno in the world, buses, taxis, even more Fiat Unos, some Carabinieri... And I think I couldn't hear a single engine - the horns were louder.

Oh well... I still know the Bologna main station from memory - eight hours can be long, but they served an excellent sort of coffee there.

That day I made up my own theory: While many international cars are equipped with a regular horn, Italian cars must have a button only to interrupt their permanent screaming horn for a few seconds.

Last year when I was in Rome, I found out: They still keep to that old tradition... I like people cultivating systematic habits.

Unfortunately France will change now their license-plate system, similar to the newer in Italy and Spain (and as usual in Belgium, Holland and Sweden, too. There you cannot recognize any more, where the car is coming from.

The main advantage of the system with special letter- or number-codes for every region, town or county (as usual in Germany and until now in France) is, that you can be always prepared with a big bouquet of prejudices and ressentiments about the drivers.

The tunnel under the Place de Charles de Gaulle is something for mollycoddles.

@Animatronixx: dein Verhalten war falsch. Niemals soll man an italienischen Zebrastreifen warten, bis einer anhält. Das wird nie passieren. Losgehen, einfach losgehen, und die Fahrer anschauen. Das funktioniert tatsächlich.

Eventually they will keep some regional symbol on the side of the license (I even think that this will be mandatory). So the only real difference is that the region on the plate will be chosen by the user and not by where the car was registered.

An interesting side note about horns: In New York City, as of a couple years ago, you can be fined for honking
On my trip to NY I saw many of these signs posted:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhermans/2444836347/

But I can tell you, this "law" is not very effective. Old habits die hard I guess, especially for those cab drivers.

Found another strange law of NYC:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bhermans/2444837821/in/set-72157604735617048/

@Max: I'd heard in the 90ies, that in New York you cannot accelerate so fast at a green traffic light, that a real N.Y.taxi-driver will NOT honking.

Indeed, when I'd been in Manhattan (Dec 2003 and Feb 2008), there weren't many horns to hear.
But still annother typical Manhattan-sound (typical in European eyes): the sirens of police and emergency-cars in the night.



A propos the way of riving: when I made my "autodriveaway"-tour in July 1993 across the USA, I've recognized, that the driver's behaviours were really different between the States.

So in Kansas and Oklahoma all drivers are driving not fast. I'd put the cruise-control at 58 mls, when there was a 55 mls-limit and i've passed them all.
Entering Texas, directly on the border-line all drivers had accelerated and were going faster. In California the way of driving was more "dynamic", too, but in Nevada (where I'd heard before, that the people there were driving quite fast), it wasn't that extreme. The state, where all drivers were going very fast ("very fast" in US-eyes, not in German eyes) was Wisconsin.
There I had a little race with around 90 miles (140 km/h) per hour. "Little" means 200 km long on the Interstate 94. I drove a 1986 Pontiac Sunbird, the other driver a same-aged Chevrolet Cavalier.

I had to quit the race, because suddenly the three lamps "check engine", "oil" and "generator" were flashing. I was really pissed - just 200 km with a bit speed and the engine gets exhausted.
For me the US-quality had caused it. Shortly before my US-trip I had made a 600 km-trip with my 1973 K 70 - always full throttle on the Autobahn. Sure, the fuel consumption was high - but the engine was purring like a happy cat.

P.S. At these 13 000 km, I made within 20 days in the US, I'd only seen one time a driver, who behaves like a German: driving very close to the car in front of him, and using flash-lights and the left turn signal to squeeze him from the left lane. It was on one highway around L.A.

Why not on foot? you're not meant to walk along the road through the cars



Funny but sadly true...



Now that you mention that, you're not supposed to honk inside of a city in Spain, it's forbbiden, but as you very well say peopl still do it even if not "legal"

Maximum idling time in Sweden is one minute.

Ingo, I completely agree with your thoughts of Wisconsin. It seems the only purpose for the entire state is to serve as a bridge to Chicago. I drove to Chippewa Falls last week and many non-Interstate roads are built up to freeway specifications, so drivers were moving at similar speeds.

You can do it: that's what Ingo said that he did



Rough summary from our "code de la route" : in Belgium they must be as short as possible and can be used only to warn others from a danger or prevent accident (i.e. not to be used to call a friend, or in a traffic jam). Outside the city they can also be used to notify someone that you will pass him (what is funny is that for this purpose it is not much used )
In the night it must be replaced by the switch on/off of the "big headlights".