Turkish roundabouts

[swamp]

I had a very near miss on a roundabout in Turkey last week when driving a hire car on holiday. I was turning left to take the third exit (they drive on right of course) when an oncoming 4x4 joined the roundabout at speed and we both had to slam on the brakes. The lady driver of said car shouted and gesticulated something rude in Turkish and we both went our ways.

Turns out it was all my fault. You don't have right of way on a roundabout in Turkey. Despite having proper 'roundabout' signs they are just round traffic islands between main roads, which sort of defeats their purpose IMO.

Anyway has anyone else encountered strange and unusual traffic rules abroad?

[matthias73]

I was driving in Germany and everyone was on the wrong side of the road, gesticulating at me.

Very bizzare experience. I found it easier just to join them, in the end.

[mrsimmers]

My parents live in Turkey but gave up driving as there all raving lunatics.

[TheHeretic]

They added some roundabouts on the way out of Veliko Tarnovo last year. I have never seen such utter bewilderment at a bit of road design before by the Bulgarians. Great care had to be taken, otherwise death would be swift.

[Gruber]

I stayed in a hotel in Luxor, Egypt, a few years back. Our room's balcony over-looked a roundabout (we were on a budget). I reckon you could have stood and watched all day and not been any the wiser as to the rules of the road. Cars went round in either direction , no-one giving way to anyone else. And at night, some used lights and some didn't. Fascinating and completely addictive viewing. We saw a few prangs over the course of the week.

[David87]

Lesson learned - always read up on the rules of somewhere you're going to drive! That said, I did get confused once whilst driving in America - I came across a crossroads with a sign that said 'yield on green'. I have to admit that at the time I was just like 'WTF?' and had obviously missed it in my reading of the rules there, but luckily there wasn't much traffic around and I managed to navigate the turn safely.

[tercelgold]

Stop signs in the USA were a confusion to me, coming into a campsite there was a tiny, tiny, 4 way stop and not knowing where the campsite was but from being the first to arrive and taking time looking around there were then two others were waiting for me to go and waited and waited.

Eventually I drove through the stop sign to avoid any further delay to them and then stopped not blocking any exits and i decided to put the Hazard lights on. So the other two drivers had to work out who arrived second and third then they both decide to help us. Almost caused an accident and I'm sure there was much swearing and gnashing of teeth at the idiot from abroad. Hazard lights mean parking or a takeaway to me but this was 60 miles to next gas station territory so being caring and obeying the rules and generally nice people was their problem. fking Americans.

[TheHeretic]

Stop signs are easy. You just go in turn. Great idea. Better than traffic lights.

[ajf]

Most of the middle east if you have an RTA with a local no matter what your at fault

Adrian

[hyperblue]

You should've looked up the rules of the road before driving in Turkey. Having said that, the standard of driving is a bit special out there!

[Papa Hotel]

Driving in Iraq, it's difficult trying to grasp their particular rules of the road. Get it wrong and they start shooting at you! If you do something really heinous like drive a yellow Landrover they'll try to bomb you then complain to your boss!

[the_lone_wolf]

In Morocco five of us on bikes were coming north out of Meknes on a nice new dual carriageway

We were overtaking a car in lane one, only to find ourselves staring down a construction truck travelling the wrong way down lane two, followed by a bunch of cars

A mile or so up the road, after sticking to lane one and passing a stream of traffic driving the wrong way we found the cause, they'd closed the exit of a roundabout and started a contraflow with no signage, just a guy waving people the wrong way into the entrance to the roundabout

[baldy1926]

Moscow is fun.
Last time i was there in the car being driven from the airport.
The other carriageway was slow rush hour traffic so load of cars just do u turns and drive off down the way they came against 4 lanes of traffic.
Thats normal apparently

[busta]

I hired a French car in France once. The steering wheel was so far out of line I was almost in the passengers lap. And as for reaching the foot peddles? Forget about it, no chance! In the end I had to get my wife to drive from the passenger seat. No wonder the French have got such a reputation for building terrible cars.