Last Wednesday were in Elche and I left an obvious space so a car, joining from a slip road, could pop into the main traffic flow. The driver waved in acknowledgement. I was surprised; I wondered if he were foreign, like me. Spaniards do not, generally, acknowledge any assistance on the road. Flash someone in for instance and there is, usually, no answering flash, no quick flip of the hazard lights nor any little wave. Actually, if, as a pedestrian, you hold the door for someone entering or leaving a building there's unlikely to be any acknowledgement either but that's another post.
Most Britons complain about Spanish driving. Mind you most Spaniards I have ever talked to complain about Spanish driving too just as all Britons complain about British driving. Saudis don't complain about other Saudi drivers except after the bump.
Signalling is something that Spanish drivers don't seem to be keen on. Again I have seen facetious Facebook videos from Arkansas State Troopers demonstrating what turn indicators are used for and how they operate. Maybe it's not a uniquely Spanish problem. This lack of signalling is particularly problematic in roundabouts.
Spanish roundabouts have a different system to the one in use in the UK. Basically you have to be in the outside lane to leave the roundabout (just to be clear about this I mean the lane that has would involve driving the longest distance around the roundabout). The outside lane has priority over the inside lanes. Not that it's the recommended system but this means that even in the biggest city with lots of traffic and, say, a five lane roundabout your "safest" bet is to take the outside lane and to go round and round in the same lane till you reach your exit. It's not the method that the traffic authorities suggest but the "approved" version at times includes a lane change which is sometimes impossible to achieve. If you are in one of the inside lanes and there is a car outside of you then you have to give way. It is not the best system and, effectively, it makes all but the outside lane redundant. As you may expect, in reality, people use all the lanes and do what they can not to bump into each other. The rules also only require drivers to signal their intention to leave the roundabout or to change lane which is effectively the same thing. No turn signal means the vehicle intends to continue circling the roundabout. So, if you're waiting to enter a roundabout and there is no turn signal from the approaching vehicle you should wait. As signalling is considered to be a waste of time by nearly everybody it's an absolute lottery as to whether a car will keep coming or turn off.
If signalling is only for the woolly minded and weak then so, for some, is leaving any space between your car and the car in front. Most of the time the traffic just goes pootling along without any problem but if something is going too slowly the line of vehicles behind will drive as though they were in one of those Secret Service Convoys you see in the films. A metre or two between vehicles at most. This is usually a spectator sport for me because I leave plenty of space between the front of my car and the back of the vehicle I'm following. That's a distance for me to control. Not so for the driver behind me who often seems quite convinced that by closing the gap to the back of my car to some 30cms or so I will speed up. I often wonder where the driver behind thinks I am going to go. Boxed in by a vehicle in front and a not to be crossed white line to the left there is nowhere for me to go. I really don't understand their reasoning unless they are fans of doggy style and/or anal sex and find the rear of my car in some way exciting.
Another quite interesting and problematic thing are the speed limit signs. Not the idea of speed limits but the signs for those limits. Spain is littered with signs. The general rule is to give way to traffic to your right but normally, where a minor road meets a major road, the signs override that generic rule and precedence is with the main road. There is though, usually, a sign to limit the speed as you pass the junction. On a typical 90km/h two lane road the speed limit across the junction is 60km/h. The majority of traffic doesn't slow to 60 but most people slacken off a little. I had a Guardia Civil car tailing me as I got to one of these signs. Discretion being the better part of valour I slowed to keep to the speed limit and the Guardia car almost rammed me from behind. It's the same sort of thing when approaching a roundabout. Presuming that we're on a normal two lane, 90km/h road there will be a sign maybe 200 metres out from the roundabout to say 70km/h and then 50 metres out another to say 40 km/h. It's a favourite trick of the Guardia Civil traffic cars to put their speed traps just past the sign because any average driver will be slowing for the approaching hazard but they will still be doing more than the speed limit as they pass the radar.
Just two last things. Although they are dying out now Spain used to have lots of junctions with a sort of horseshoe shape turn. Rather than stopping in the middle of the road to make a cross traffic turn you would drive into the horseshoe and then stop to check whether it was safe to proceed. Most have been replaced by roundabouts, though some still exist on quieter roads. |
| This is from a driving test sample. The correct answer is the orange route. |
The other thing is that in the past if someone was wandering around the road, going alternatively quickly and then slowly I used to presume they were drunk or stoned. Nowadays I just presume that they have an incredibly important WhatsApp message to type. And isn't that something you recognise too?
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