Terrifying driving countries and experiences
Discussion
I've driven all over the world, including many far eastern and south american countries and the only place I have genuinely feared for my life was Bolivia.
Spent a month there quite a couple of years back and their roads are terrifying. Crumbling verges carved into mountain sides and it's the only place where I have seen multiple fatalities.
I was not prepared for what I went through out there and feel lucky to have survived it.
Spent a month there quite a couple of years back and their roads are terrifying. Crumbling verges carved into mountain sides and it's the only place where I have seen multiple fatalities.
I was not prepared for what I went through out there and feel lucky to have survived it.
I've not driven in many backwaters, except one.
Morocco, flew to Marrakech and then drove down to Agadir in a terrible little hire car (almost every panel was dented before I picked it up). Using rudimentary sat-nav. On nothing bigger than A roads.
Rule 1) The Grande Taxis are a rule unto themselves - mainly 1980 era Mercedes with 4 pot engines, filled to capacity with all human life and then thrashed down the highway with little or no regard for anything UNLESS they see another fare. Then it's brake brake brake and swerve onto the hard shoulder.
Rule 2) A lorry may carry anything and everything and occupy any position on the carriageway. Rounded a bend on the edge of the Atlas mountains and found two lorries facing me, plus some goats high up above the cab looking down from atop the payload. Their overtaking was going to take as long as needed, I just had to plot a new course off the tarmac and out of their way temporarily (even at 100kph+).
Rinse and repeat for a three hour journey. Great fun and some spectacular scenery too, but not comfy or relaxing.
Morocco, flew to Marrakech and then drove down to Agadir in a terrible little hire car (almost every panel was dented before I picked it up). Using rudimentary sat-nav. On nothing bigger than A roads.
Rule 1) The Grande Taxis are a rule unto themselves - mainly 1980 era Mercedes with 4 pot engines, filled to capacity with all human life and then thrashed down the highway with little or no regard for anything UNLESS they see another fare. Then it's brake brake brake and swerve onto the hard shoulder.
Rule 2) A lorry may carry anything and everything and occupy any position on the carriageway. Rounded a bend on the edge of the Atlas mountains and found two lorries facing me, plus some goats high up above the cab looking down from atop the payload. Their overtaking was going to take as long as needed, I just had to plot a new course off the tarmac and out of their way temporarily (even at 100kph+).
Rinse and repeat for a three hour journey. Great fun and some spectacular scenery too, but not comfy or relaxing.
rxe said:
CPWilliams said:
Quality/ speed of emergency services and trauma care are probably a big factor too.
The quality and age of the UK fleet vs. some third world country also has a huge bearing on survival. If you're properly belted in, you've got to be fairly unlucky to die in a UK crash below 40 MPH. In less rigorous jurisdictions, you may be an old car that would fail an MOT in the UK with ease .... and thus fold up like a bean can when hit. Also quality of roads, signage etc.
Drink driving isn't a huge problem here. If an officer caught me with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of exactly 0.05 I'd be taking a holiday from the road where as in Perth I'd be let off, not even a ticket. I wont get a suspension until 0.08 and Perth was pretty strict with roadside breath testing (one of the few things WA Police did right).
In the UK I keep to a strict 1 beer maximum if driving and I suspect many others in the UK are the same if not completely ZT. Granted that here the train, a taxi or even a Premier Inn hotel room is a cheap enough alternative. I think a lot of places that have DUI problems have them because there aren't any viable alternatives.
captain_cynic said:
Gad-Westy said:
nikaiyo2 said:
techguyone said:
wonder if the tales match up to the countries shown here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...
WOW the UK has the joint 3rd lowest death rate in the world, behind Federated States of Micronesia and Switzerland, you would have thought that would be quite widely publicized/ celebrated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by...
Edited by Gad-Westy on Thursday 5th April 13:22
I'm from Australia, which has approx 2x the road toll per capita and can write volumes of the bad behaviours of Australian drivers which aren't done here. Here in the UK, you rarely get tailgated, people don't try to block and speed match you when overtaking. The majority of people do keep to the left hand lanes. Australia is better than the US and again the US is better than the Philippines.
Sure the UK isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good. That doesn't mean we cant improve though. Phone use is steadily increasing and the indicator seems to have gone out of style.
Main A-Class roads with surfaces akin to tracks, albeit surfaced. Dual carriageways with potholes.
White lines completely worn away, so people cut blind corners
Drains regularly blocked, rarely maintained.
Councils only seem to react to complaints, any sign of regular maintenance, or any for that matter, has disappeared.
Drivers glued to phones, or heads down fiddling with touch screens or phones or turning around to sort out the children in the back
Driving without lights at night (but DRLs on)
You now drive according to the holes in the road, the art of positioning a vehicle for safety / visibility / stability is now virtually impossible
It goes on and on but we used to set the example, now we're rapidly declining.
Still, looking on the bright side, at least it keeps the manufacturers of 'slippery road' signs busy, there are hundreds of those signs around my way.
ruhall said:
I've driven in many countries and agree that some are terrible. However, our roads and the general driver behaviour pattern here is rapidly deteriorating:
Main A-Class roads with surfaces akin to tracks, albeit surfaced. Dual carriageways with potholes.
I agree that the road network is getting worse due to lack of maintenance. I was just pointing out that the standard of driving here is still far better than Australia and yep, there are some issues. The biggest of which IMHO, is the lack of indicators and as you pointed out, people driving with just DRLs (I blame the prevalence of automatic lights for this... people don't know when it's switched off or not even a feature on the car they're driving).Main A-Class roads with surfaces akin to tracks, albeit surfaced. Dual carriageways with potholes.
Driving is pretty good here, but that doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels over it.
I can echo the comments about Egypt especially the drive from Cairo to port siad and back , but the one that sticks with me is Baku .
I had the pleasure of working down there for over a year but company policy meant we were driven , but my first trip from the airport to the apartment I thought I was going to die .
Way too many old ladas being driven about at Mach 3 with absolutely no consideration of how truly s
t their brakes are or for what the traffic is actually doing , old Volgas used to carry used drill pipe sections , think of the Russian dash cam footage and your there .But after a while you kind of switch off too it and it becomes the norm , but you get a quick reality check when you see the remnants of a crash and how easy the ladas fold like soggy paper .
I would go back in a heartbeat
PostHeads123 said:
M1 coming up to Coventry / Birmingham last Sat I probably saw some of the worse driving I ever seen and it was in UK, it was an Audi A6 black, blacked out windows, I had my misses and 2 year old in the car and he nearly killed us, driving literally on my rear bumper, in and out of traffic like he was some racing driver, I cant believe he had a license.
Happens every time on the toll road here, there is always somebody wanting to go faster than you and if you're in the fastest lane and all the others are blocked he will sit on your bumper till you're past the vehicle on your left or right and dart into that gap with foot to the floor and continue weaving through the traffic as fast as possible.Hard shoulder is in use on every toll road, unless a truck is parked on it or the rozzers.
If we ever have to stop on the toll road, I will make my driver park off the hard shoulder as I don't want a truck ploughing through the car.
Indonesia does have a very high death rate, I believe a lot of that is down to lack of emergency services. In ten years here, I have never seen a paramedic type ambulance. Just doesn't exist. The casualty has to be taken or take themselves to a hospital. Fire service do not attend RTA's.
The ambulances that do exist here, and you see them regularly are solely for the movement of the deceased. Sirens blaring, even in gridlocked traffic to move a body, this grates me more than it should. Every other driver knows it's not for a medical emergency so doesn't get out of the way which then means your adjacent to a siren for an annoying amount of time.
Traffic layout is unplanned, below my office window a new intersection is being built, and as roads develop they get opened. There is now a chap stood on the corner of the new junction with a megaphone shouting at people in the passing cars trying to tell them where the new road takes them. I can't work out why a sign hasn't been erected.
DUI is not so much of an issue here, a largely Muslim society and the wealthy all have drivers.
Phone use is incessant, never questioned and quite normal. I had to educate my driver to leave his phone alone and silent when in the car.
Phone use on motorcycles is normal, to continue the call they will just shove the phone up the side of their helmet.
Smoking on a motorcycle - normal.
A whole family of five on a motorcycle - normal
A full size refrigerator on the back seat of a motorcycle - normal
Fifty live chickens tied by their feet hanging over the back seat of a motorcycle - normal
When I went to get my local driving licence, they didn't want to see my UK licence, only my passport and work permit.
I've then rented a vehicle in the UK on the same licence.
I live in Asia, driven in Africa a lot, I ride a Bike in Malaysia and Thailand a lot, have a home in Jakarta, maybe its me but I don't find it frightening, its chaotic, and you need to assume everyone is out to kill you, but if you do that its Ok, in Thailand never hug the line on a bend or a blind brow, assume something is coming the other way. There are accidents but most are fender benders and quickly sorted out.
I actually find the sat nav, speed camera watching in the UK far worse to drive in,
Bikes for example, it looks awful in Asia but people are aware of bikes they assume that they are uninsured so they see you and don't squeeze you when lane splitting. Bikes in the Uk are scary because no one is aware of you. 20 years of ridding bike in Asia, including 1000cc super bikes and iI'e never actually touched another vehicle, I've dropped it a few times on my own, once I was lucky to walk away as I went across the opposite line on my back but my fault ridding to fast.
Given a chose of where to ride/drive for pleasure I'd pick Thailand any time over the UK, I find the chaos invigorating. In the 70's I'd take my Elan around what is now called the Evo triangle in Wales, no cameras no police, Asia is the nearest thing to that I know today.
I actually find the sat nav, speed camera watching in the UK far worse to drive in,
Bikes for example, it looks awful in Asia but people are aware of bikes they assume that they are uninsured so they see you and don't squeeze you when lane splitting. Bikes in the Uk are scary because no one is aware of you. 20 years of ridding bike in Asia, including 1000cc super bikes and iI'e never actually touched another vehicle, I've dropped it a few times on my own, once I was lucky to walk away as I went across the opposite line on my back but my fault ridding to fast.
Given a chose of where to ride/drive for pleasure I'd pick Thailand any time over the UK, I find the chaos invigorating. In the 70's I'd take my Elan around what is now called the Evo triangle in Wales, no cameras no police, Asia is the nearest thing to that I know today.
bristolracer said:
Im in Vietnam right now .
Hanoi has 5 million scooters on the roads,it is total mayhem, the stuff you see carried on the backs of them, air conditioners,wardrobes,cages of ducks, four members of the family.
Traffic lights are optional, and to cross the road you just take a deep breath and go,and hope the river of motorbikes will part and flow around you!
However, you don’t really seem to get traffic jams, and the traffic seems to keep on moving,maybe we could learn from this?
I took these pictures last week around Saigon, great city buy terrifying roads. The last picture is of petrol sold to motorcyclists in lemonade bottles. Hanoi has 5 million scooters on the roads,it is total mayhem, the stuff you see carried on the backs of them, air conditioners,wardrobes,cages of ducks, four members of the family.
Traffic lights are optional, and to cross the road you just take a deep breath and go,and hope the river of motorbikes will part and flow around you!
However, you don’t really seem to get traffic jams, and the traffic seems to keep on moving,maybe we could learn from this?
Jakarta said:
Similar arrangement here, millions of motorcycles in Jakarta. They seem to part like water and in general as a car driver you tend to ignore them.
They do help trying to get through a junction, they're a bit more adventurous than cars poking their nose out until a car slows and once the first bike has gone through, a wave of them follows and you get carried along in the car.
Accidents seem to be very few, and usually not too disastrous. Mostly caused by the fact that nobody is ever sure of others drivers ability, awareness or commitment to any progress. Which can be very frustrating as a UK experienced driver, they tend to just dither and creep forward until eventually one of them commits to the move.
Doesn't always work though, I also ride a Husqvarna Nuda here, and despite the size, I still get cars trying to squeeze through gaps and end up nudging your front wheel, despite being static.
Also, the bar end mirrors get knocked on a daily basis, I had to change them from extending sideways to upwards only.
Indonesian driving was hilarious, i spent 6 weeks there studying the reefs and from the driving concluded there is no 'side of the road' they just drive anywhere They do help trying to get through a junction, they're a bit more adventurous than cars poking their nose out until a car slows and once the first bike has gone through, a wave of them follows and you get carried along in the car.
Accidents seem to be very few, and usually not too disastrous. Mostly caused by the fact that nobody is ever sure of others drivers ability, awareness or commitment to any progress. Which can be very frustrating as a UK experienced driver, they tend to just dither and creep forward until eventually one of them commits to the move.
Doesn't always work though, I also ride a Husqvarna Nuda here, and despite the size, I still get cars trying to squeeze through gaps and end up nudging your front wheel, despite being static.
Also, the bar end mirrors get knocked on a daily basis, I had to change them from extending sideways to upwards only.
V40Vinnie said:
Indonesian driving was hilarious, i spent 6 weeks there studying the reefs and from the driving concluded there is no 'side of the road' they just drive anywhere
Your reference to studying reefs reminds me of an awful experience in North Bali (where there are reefs being re-established). I'd just crossed the straits on the local ferry Java - Bali and was heading inland along the main road. Unlit, but very light traffic and making reasonable progress, around 7pm so dark.
Completely out of the blue, with no warning lights whatsoever I had to get hard on the brakes and perform an emergency stop. Roadworks conducted during the day and they'd closed off the left side of the road by installing a 3m high mound of dirt. The only notice I had was the effective distance of my headlights. I'm sure somebody probably died during the night who didn't see it.
[quote=bristolracer]Im in Vietnam right now .
Hanoi has 5 million scooters on the roads,it is total mayhem, the stuff you see carried on the backs of them, air conditioners,wardrobes,cages of ducks, four members of the family.
Our taxi driver said a family of SIX on ONE bike is normal. I saw a women with a baby in arms !!!!
I think its a toss up between Vietnam and Thailand regarding scooters.
Then you come across something like this??
Hanoi has 5 million scooters on the roads,it is total mayhem, the stuff you see carried on the backs of them, air conditioners,wardrobes,cages of ducks, four members of the family.
Our taxi driver said a family of SIX on ONE bike is normal. I saw a women with a baby in arms !!!!
I think its a toss up between Vietnam and Thailand regarding scooters.
Then you come across something like this??
Seeing that reminded me of something I saw late one night on the M5 travelling southbound between Worcester and Bristol in the middle 80's
looked like a rigid bodied truck complete of everything except a body, with a chap driving it in a crash helmet ( as no windscreen - or cab either) never saw it again and was pretty surreal, I suppose was transporting it to be bodied somewhere else.
looked like a rigid bodied truck complete of everything except a body, with a chap driving it in a crash helmet ( as no windscreen - or cab either) never saw it again and was pretty surreal, I suppose was transporting it to be bodied somewhere else.
I think the most hilarious (and dangerous) driving experiences I`ve had was in Beirute,The Lebanon.This was a long time ago,just after the war there,so things may have got better? There didn't appear to be any road rules,they just drove anywhere,absolutely mad. Some of the cars and trucks were relics from the Civil War,bullet holes, no glass, doors and wings missing,that sort of stuff.
My son`s driver was in the war and was a trained combat driver. He had an American V8 4x4 and drove it everywhere at terrifying speed.
My son`s driver was in the war and was a trained combat driver. He had an American V8 4x4 and drove it everywhere at terrifying speed.
Tunisia and Montenegro were some of the worst driving I've ever seen. Tunisia was just generally awful, Montenegro was due to our taxi driver being a fking lunatic.
Of developed, or first world countries, Italy has to be the worst. Barbados is also pretty horrific but the speeds aren't really high enough for true mayhem
king lunatic.Of developed, or first world countries, Italy has to be the worst. Barbados is also pretty horrific but the speeds aren't really high enough for true mayhem
Taaaaang said:
I usually spend 6 months of the year in Thailand.
It has got better over the last few years, tbf to the Thais.
However, it's still mentally exhausting driving over here; I refer to it as Wacky Races...think of the most insane, dangerous things possible and then expect it to happen on every journey.
There's a reason why the roads are the second most dangerous in the World...I'd never seen a dead body till I started coming here...I've seen more than I can remember now...all on the roads here.
They are no longer number 2, they have been elevated to the most dangerous in the world for road deaths per capita (even only counting those that die in the accident itself, not in the ambulance or hospital afterwards). Even worse than war torn countries such as Libya and Syria, it’s quite an achievement. It has got better over the last few years, tbf to the Thais.
However, it's still mentally exhausting driving over here; I refer to it as Wacky Races...think of the most insane, dangerous things possible and then expect it to happen on every journey.
There's a reason why the roads are the second most dangerous in the World...I'd never seen a dead body till I started coming here...I've seen more than I can remember now...all on the roads here.
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