What countries have you driven in?

fjon

And how do the drivers compare?

I have driven in:

Ireland
Wales
Germany
Italy
Cuba

Best drivers were the Germans, worst the Italians and us. Cubans were surprisingly ok, even though the cars there are in some state!

Andrewf20

1) Ireland (Stress hell alot of the time, although I do love the windy backroads on the West coast with little traffic.)
2) USA (Ah, soo stress free. Long live decent progress with multi laned roads everywhere.)
3) France later this year

Zaph

Only country I've driven much in outside Ireland is South Africa. Outside built up areas they drive very fast there but the main reason they have so many road deaths is that there's often a dozen guys packed into the back of a single pick-up. Those guys don't stand a chance if there's an accident. The roads are pretty good though, at least in the south of the country.

Fey!

Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Australia and Malta.

andreas_220D

Germany, Netherland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Danmark, Austria, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary, Andorra, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and USA.

Don't know who drives best but do know who drives worst

Bradidup

UK BSA 500. (Gsx 750F Dragan Rally)
Isle of Man Honda Fireblade
Australia, VW Panel van.
America VW Bus
Canada VW Bus
Greece Rented Jeep/ Yamaha 50.
Spain Moped

Owen

Ireland, England, Wales, France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain, America, Turkey, Thailand and Malaysia.

Anan1

Ireland, US, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, Spain, Poland, Croatia, Bosnia. Think that's it.

junkyard

Ireland, north and south, U.K. all of, Spain, most of, Italy all of, France south, Poland parts of, Germany bits of, U.S. mostly Florida, South Africa mostly south and some of Austria.
Who brought their cars with them though? I did.:)

Redshift

Here obviously;

UK (Like here but with better sign posting and road markings)
USA (Great Experience, they know how to build roads over there)

RobAMerc

Ireland, UK, France, Belgum, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile and Turkey, nearly forgot Monaco too (scaping the barrel I know )

Yep we are the worst - by a long shot too.

DublinWriter

Belgium: They drive like stoned Italians. They use the priority à gauche system, so you don't have traffic lights every 50 metres as in Dublin.

Germany: Very aggressive and 'angry' drivers around the cities. I didn't have the liathrodì to try the autobahn.

USA (Boston): Drivers fairly courteous and safe.

UK: Drivers generally OK, fairly courteous, but saw some really bad incidents of road-rage on both the M25 and M1.

Ireland: Probably the country where I most have to try and anticipate what the car in-front of me will do next based on the model and age of said vehical.

jmayo

Ireland, UK, France, Andorra, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Monte Carlo.

Max_Damage

Ireland (including Northern Ireland)

France (mad drivers and terrible road signage)

USA (California, I only drove out in the Mojave Desert)

peasant

Germany:
very aggressive, insistant on perceived rights of way, fast, with a tendency for road rage ...but at least they know what they're doing. (most of the time)

Austria;
ditto ...just on bendier, narrower and steeper roads

Italy:
Maniacs ...all of them... but very much clued in and with it. Survival of the fittest.

Switzerland:
very orderly alltogether ...aggressively orderly, if there is such a thing

Holland:
Fine ...as long as they stay in their own country

USA
boooooring (except for the overtaking on all lanes of the highway bit)

Denmark
speed limited and controlled to the hilt

UK
fine, except for the narrow lanewidth motorways and the non-keeping of distance on them while doing 80 mph in a packet of cars

France
ok, really ... except for the mad city traffic

Belgium
somehow they all drive as if they're stoned or something

Eastern Germany (former GDR)
rrrrennng, dennnng, deng, deng (two stroke Trabants ) and potholes where you could loose a complete car in


Here
oh deary me

bazz26

UK, Portugal, Spain mainland, the Canary Islands and Neitherlands.

I found the locals on the Canary Islands to be worse than those on the Spanish mainland.

I find UK drivers to be more courtious and obliging especially on their motorways. The Dutch are grand too though.

shayser

France. On my third roundabout after disembarking the ferry realised that you look left at roundabouts.

Do-more

DublinWriter wrote:

Germany: Very aggressive and 'angry' drivers around the cities. I didn't have the liathrodì to try the autobahn.

It's not just on the roads, I remember lightly bumping into another guys shopping trolley once, Jaysus, talk about "supermarket rage" but it was all lost on me I didn't understand a word he was shouting!

Back on topic: There's nothing quite like the experiance of sitting in four lanes of heavy traffic and then looking down at your speedo to see your all doing 140 - 160km/h, very disciplined drivers, just don't hit the panic button!:D

Germany, Luxembourg, Nederlands, Belguim, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Spain, USA, Greece, UK, France and here.

Stephen

Ireland, Switzerland and Germany. Autobahn for the win! Our typical overtaking lane hoggers would be blown off the road there!

The standard of driving in Switzerland and Germany is so much better than here -- as are the roads. I like the way their traffic lights go to amber before green too, gives you a chance to get into gear and let off the hand brake before it goes green.

Mike07

Ireland North and south
England
Spain
France
Canaries
Mexico
Australia
New Zealand
Switzerland
Italy--By far and away the most terrifying , what with silly amount of different speed limits on the various lanes of the motorway and the lottery of what type of Toll you were going to encounter next!!

crosstownk

Ireland
England
Scotland
Wales
Holland
Germany
Austria
Italy
Switzerland
France
Belgium
Spain
USA
Mexico (crazy stuff!)

Nothing beats der autobahnen!

peasant

crosstownk wrote:

Nothing beats der autobahnen!

I remember fondly the times when I had to bring Irish engineers to see our "important" German customer.
One hour on the Autobahn from Munich airport. Usually late in the evening and on a comparatively empty stretch.

They all started to get very pale once we got over the 100 mph (160 kmh) mark ...and stayed there.

Once the friendly rental company upgraded me to a 3 litre Omega estate ...that resulted in the palest engineer yet

Stephen

I've only driven rental cars in Germany, and since work was paying for them they were not the most suitable for the autobahn. First was a Zafira 1.8 petrol, it could hold its own once it got up to speed.

Then was a 1.6 Corolla hatchback. Faster than the Zafira, ridiculously noisy over 160kph though. Its scary when it makes whistling noises :eek:

Most recently was a Fiat Idea 1.3 Multijet. Oh dear. Terrifying pulling out onto a busy road due to the turbo lag measured in geological terms. It also didn't like driving over 160kph
It drank a whole tank of diesel just going from Zurich to Stuttgart and half way back, but was very frugal at non-autobahn speeds.

Drax

Ireland - The most stressful of all countries to drive in. There are people on the roads that really havent a clue...

Northern Ireland - Not unlike southern drivers but I think it is slightly more relaxed. Although when those nordies come down here a high percentage of them speed I reckon!

England and Scotland - Fast on motorways but safe due to the large number of speed cameras.

Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France - Again, a lot of speed cameras but people stick to limits and brake hard for red lights. Some crazies on motorways but overalls people keep it at 120 - 140km/h.

Germany - Very safe in rural areas - crazy-assed speeds on the autobahn. No lanehoggers allowed.

Italy - The craziest drivers of all! I have witnessed a car overtaking a car on the hard shoulder which was overtaking a truck on a single lane road, lots of overtaking on blind bends and flashing of headlights on motorways. If you see a car overtaking coming towards you a lot of the time you will have to move into the hard shoulder to allow them to pass. The best tailgaters in Europe.

I have been a passenger in a car in Spain and they arent far off the italians. I cant remember which one it was the Italians or Spanish but read that they 'live by the line' ..ie. they go by the continuous/broken lines on a road to decide when to overtake!

Did I mention Ireland? Quite possibly the worst most stressful place to drive. Red lights mean 'ah sure you'll get 3 or 4 more cars through that gap', amber means 'foot to the floor', lane hoggers, tailgaters, fog lights coz they look 'cool', lack of police presence on the road, sneaky cameras, bad roads...etc etc etc....

furtzy

Ireland
Scotland
England
Wales
Greece
USA
Canary Islands
Sweden
Portugal
Germany

The Greeks are the worst...absolute lunatics when it comes to overtaking. We are the second worst.

Best were the Scottish. Great roads and they also know that the over-taking lane is for over-taking....not like the twats here

franksm

Norn Iron ('cos I'm from there, and maintain it has the best/most scenic roads in Ireland - just try the coast road Cushendall to Portstewart and see what I mean)

Wales (love those roads too - especially the roads through Snowdonia, Betws-y-coed etc)

England (meh... want to get through it as quickly as possible, not much fun)

Ireland (sadly witness to the most ignorant & arrogant drivers I have come across)

France (didn't go near the motorways but nice roads, drivers there are fine)

Sweden (the ace of spades - fantastic country, lovely roads, great towns, beautiful women - can't wait to go back)

All of the above in my MX5.

In the States, I visit Seattle & environs once or twice a year (boring, really, from a driver's perspective. All highways and straight-cut roads & junctions. The people drive like pussycats too. That's work-commutes as well as day and night driving)

Have driven hire-cars on holidays in Sardinia (beauuuuutiful place), Majorca, Portugal and Tenerife, but they're much of a muchness - mad european drivers that I am usually on the defensive from. Poor condition of roads and signage when off the beaten track, but not a bother.

prospect

Ireland, N.Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Belgium, Holland, Australia, USA.

I have to disagree with alot of posters here about driving in the states. I spend the best part of a week in California sitting in traffic jams about 4 lanes wide!! Also, WTF is the story with the road between JFK airport and New York city. The surface is CRAP. Any main road surface in ireland would put it too shame.

Australia was good. I did a good bit of intercity and city commuter driving, and I don't really remember that much bad about it.


Also, I think you guys probably did a good bit of holiday driving, i.e. off peak, and not in industrial or commuter belt areas. Where as, when you are at home you are more likely to be driving in these more 'chaotic' situations.

Remember,
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence,
but it's just as hard to cut it.....

Stephen

prospect wrote:

Also, WTF is the story with the road between JFK airport and New York city. The surface is CRAP. Any main road surface in ireland would put it too shame.

Driving in New York City is for masochists, especially when it has such an excellent public transport system: the subway.

tc20

Good thread..

up North- you can literally feel the difference in road surface and condition as soon as you cross the border, great drives too along the Antrim coast as franksm mentioned

Scotland- again great roads, dramatic scenery, 2+1 lane stretches

Germany- nuff said :cool:

Holland/Belgium/Luxembourg- some nice twisty bits, tho Belgian roads reminded me a lot of here (the state of them, tho this was 93-95)

Austria- in a VR6 Golf, nice, but would have liked to do it in a Porsche and really wellied it thru the Alps

Canaries- hired a car for 3 days, barely used it. Scary sheer drops on one side, buses coming at you on the wrong side :eek:
Plus they dont give you a chance when the lights turn green do they? Im no slouch when it comes to getting away from the lights, but these guys take it to another level

Australia- loved the big overhead gantries on the east coast highways telling you "Your speed is xxx, Slow down Mate!" then trying to outdo your previous speed at the next one

exactiv

Scotland - better drivers, better roads (especially B road surface) - Seat Arosa 1.0

France - Crap concrete motorways, driving was fine - Peugeot 407

Belgium - Good roads, good driving (230kph with four of us in a Renault Megane CC)

Holland - Same... yawnnnn - Renault Megane Coupe

Italy - Excellent drivers, very fast, but they all know what they're doing. Best place I've driven (200kph in a schweet Alfa 147 )

Finland - Great roads, great driving, really really low speed limits. - Ford Focus 1.6 (amazingly crap car)

USA - Boring, roads so big you could be doing 200mph and wouldn't feel it. Rubbish cars too. - Chrysler something-or-other

Belarus - If you want to see unbelievably bad driving... go there. - Ford Transit

Home - Well, lets just say the quality of driving depends on the time of day, weather, age, sex, car and colour of the car. Avoid L plate drivers like the plague.

el tel

The worst driving I've ever experienced is in Kenya. It's just like Ireland only faster and without the mobile phones. And instead of combine harvesters on the motorways, they have throngs of pedestrians. It seemed to me that 50% of drivers were on a suicide mission while the other 50% were in training for a suicide mission. Their road design is also very helpful with this, with such wonderful anomalies as on- and off-ramps entering and exiting the carriageways on the outside lane.

PaddyFagan

Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK, France, Germany, Luxemborg, Hungary, Portugal, Zimbabwe, Australia, USA

Best Drivers - Australia (It's a close call, but...)
Worst Drivers - Zimbabwe (Really badly mantained cars + lack of respect for stop signs/red lights => trouble)

Paddy