7 ms·

I recently drove around Spain for 2 weeks. My first significant international driving experience. I was shocked at how seriously they took the rule of only pa

by habosa 7y ago

I recently drove around Spain for 2 weeks. My first significant international driving experience. I was shocked at how seriously they took the rule of only passing on the left. Every single car in the right line was driving slower than every single car in the left. It made driving so much better. The behavior of every car was basically predictable. I've never seen anyone pay much attention to their lane here.

Stevvo 7y ago
In all of Europe, undertaking is illegal. When we come to the US, driving feels like you are in a third world country.
- bartread 7y ago
  In the UK it's actually not illegal: it's just advised against, and considered bad form in most situations by most drivers. And, of course, if you cause an accident by undertaking the police will (rightly) throw the book at you. Examples where it's considered acceptable to undertake: - In heavier or queuing traffic inside lanes might move faster than outside lanes: this is OK, and it's considered better and safer to stay in lane than keep changing lanes to overtake. - Motorcycles filtering through traffic, which generally occurs between the middle and outside lane on motorways. Where gaps are bigger motorcyclists will often move from the outside to middle lanes to get around slow moving vehicles in the outside lane. Again, this tends to apply when traffic is heavier.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    If you do it on a reasonably clear road to get around someone hogging an overtaking lane, and the police see you, they're going to pull you over and give you a fixed penalty notice for careless driving though. I know this from experience.
    - jamiek88 7y ago
      Me too! M4 from London to Cardiff for the Ryder Cup. Had lived in Texas for years, was fresh off the plane and forgot it wasn't legal. No mercy shown! Jokes on them though I never paid the ticket and I'm never going to.
      - londons_explore 7y ago
        Your estate will likely pay the ticket with 50 years of interest when you die.
      - onion2k 7y ago
        You've been punished enough by sitting through the tedium of golf tournament. :)
      - wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
        I always find it interesting when people brag about not paying fines — especially when the fine is issued in a foreign country. To me it shows a lack of responsibility and a huge lack of respect for the local laws. I guess not everyone feels that way though.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        there is a certain cynicism regarding traffic laws in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection or to give the police an excuse to pull you over, absent any real safety concern. in my state, for example, it is against the law to have anything dangling from the rearview mirror. if I so much as forget to take down my parking permit in the morning, I can be pulled over at any time. fwiw, I take traffic flow very seriously. I will always move over if I notice someone driving close behind me.
        bartread 7y ago
        > in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection That's not a US only phenomenon. For example, in the UK there is a - somewhat justified - suspicion that some speed[1] cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with revenue raising. [1] Ahem, sorry, I mean "safety" not "speed", obviously.
    - bartread 7y ago
      Interesting. On the A1M heading to and from Peterborough I've also seen them flash and pull people over for lane hogging so at least they're enforcing it both ways. Super annoying when you're cruising along in the inside lane and then have to cross the entire width of the carriageway to overtake some clown hogging the middle lane: always feels a bit risky, especially if there are vehicles coming up from behind in the outside lane. Same when you get someone who's pulled out to overtake a lorry but can't be bothered to pull in again even though the next vehicle they'd overtake is hundreds of metres ahead of them.
  - Aengeuad 7y ago
    Like many other things in the Highway Code there may be no specific offence for failing to follow it but the police have enough freedom with fixed penalty notices making disregarding the rules an ill advised activity. https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm
    - bartread 7y ago
      I have no problem with this as long as they consistently enforce against lane hogging in the same way. (In my A1M example they clearly do.)
  - PaulRobinson 7y ago
    The Highway Code says you shouldn't do it unless you're in slow moving traffic. RAC article here: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/ The problem with undertaking for me is that it reduces options when you need them the most. If I'm in the middle lane doing 70mph and thinking "I can't pull into the inside because that car is only 30 foot off my bumper", that driver deciding to keep up with me at 70mph or undertaking reduces my outs in the event of a tyre blowout or other incident (e.g. a broken down car or debris in the middle lane ahead). Where there is a dynamic hard shoulder or all-lane running, options become fewer still and the chance of a problem even higher. And then there are the lorries on the inside of a 50mph average speed check contraflow undertaking in narrow lanes at 0.25mph more than the outside lane - that's just an accident waiting to happen. I've also been on the outside lane overtaking somebody who was doing 65mph in the middle lane with an empty inside lane who as I moved to overtake sped up. Not undertaking: just blocking me from moving past and back into the middle lane. I then had a boy racer come in behind me at 90mph and have to throw the anchor out whilst flashing his lights at me, and my options are basically "hope for the best". We were on a relatively tight corner for a motorway (it's that horrid section of the M60 that runs through Stockport), so deciding to accelerate to get out of this would have meant potentially losing control of the car, and the guy in the middle lane was likely going to pin me there anyway... For me then - especially in the narrow lanes of UK motorways - it is not just about using middle and outside lanes for passing only, there is a responsibility of the drivers on the inside to allow that to happen and give those around them enough options if they need them, and not doing so should be considered just as much a case of careless driving as undertaking in most other scenarios.
- samstave 7y ago
  So many aspects about driving in the US are so terrible. The road conditions are pretty bad, and what i would like to understand are the gas taxes and other taxes which ostensibly go into road infra. We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going? Some countries have high vehicle costs and their roads to me seem pristine and perfect by comparison. Specifically in fresh memory is both Singapore and Hong Kong. The condition of their roads just seem to be flawless. In the US we even have potholes jokingly having birthdays thrown for them, gas prices include large per gallon taxes and road conditions never appear to improve - and yearly reports of “crumbling infrastructure” and “deteriorating dangerous bridges” keep coming out.
  - slavik81 7y ago
    > We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going? A. You don't have high gas taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_tax_in_OECD_countries%2C_2010..png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_ta... B. You build a lot of roads.
    - samstave 7y ago
      Nope. California comes in second on the list of states with the highest gas tax at 72.76 cents per gallon. Rising fuel prices and increased taxation are the primary reasons for this. A law that was passed in 2017 allowed the state of California to increase the gas tax by a steep 12 cents, because it seemed like the most viable way to obtain the funds needed to replace several bridges and fund other important road projects. You can expect the state’s gas tax to increase further by 7.5 cents per gallon in a few months. We consume 10% of the US’ gas consumption i. California. We consume more than 40 million gallons per day. There are opaque additonal taxes on each gallon sold at the nearly 9,000 gas stations and billions in taxes are also missing. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/sd-fi-california-gasoline-20180402-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s... And not all taxes are hitting our roads...
      - 7y ago
- cmurf 7y ago
  Perhaps worse in terms of consistency. Private drivers education, public school drivers education, or uncle Bob can just teachya! The testing is remarkably pathetic. It's impressive this system works as well as it does. Red light runners, meh, just fine them! Pot smokers, fine and imprison them even if they weren't near a vehicle! Honestly it's so backwards.
- detritus 7y ago
  My experiences of driving in Italy point to a slight disregard for the law in that case - I've never seen more egregious undertaking than I have on the motorways there... .
- gharding 7y ago
  I used to hold that position too, but then I realized a couple things that could fill several books. It boils down to the fact that the USA was essentially first to build a road network based on assumptions of low population density, high abundance and first to access requisite resources; and assuming a civilized society with a baseline of standards, culture, and customs that were essentially tacit and implicit to the system without having to be regulated or explicitly managed. If you are European, although the significantly increased government control of its population will mitigate things somewhat, reality is that as Europe has now imbued itself with third world people and the customs and proclivities they carry, the road behaviors will also change even more than they clearly have, as anyone who has driven in Europe for more than 20 or so years, can attest to. And before anyone gets triggered on some conditioned and well trained pavlovian assumptions, what I described above was equally observable when East Germans started meshing with West Germany, where after 55 years of having been exposed to relentless psychological engineering to break East Germans of their German-ness and proclivities and identity, they lacked what are commonly understood to be certain German traits and preferences for methodical order, systematic structure, and social courtesy; all of which the East Germans had far less of a connection to. That led to a lot of poor driving on roads and that has really not changed all that much either since as anyone who spends any distinct time on West German Roads and East German roads can attest to, even though the impact is being muddled by things like Polish drivers in East Germany and increasingly foreign drivers from all over the place. Essentially it also comes down to the fact that now people with drivers licenses from various other European countries with lower driving standards, are also just allowed to drive in Germany without having to meet the far higher German driving class standards. It's yet another way in which democracy itself is being utterly disassembled, as foreign minorities are advantaged over native majorities … a total in version of democracy and even basic morality and ethics. As for the USA, things have gotten so bad in many states that just ignoring the overcapacity of most of the road system due to unfettered and uncontrolled invasion by foreigners driving on US roads, you now have a whole ethnic driving license racket going on where an ethnic communities pass their own in spite of essentially not passing or being safe drivers. I know that is not what people here want to hear, but reality simply is that this whole system is failing and it is failing due to deliberate bugs intentionally injected, and instead of fixing those bugs, people are just covering them up and making excuses and using ever mounting number of hacks to obscure and hide the ever more brittle system. It's quite telling that even in this kind of forum no one seems to understand that they are looking at a totally broken system and one that is failing at every increasing speed; all while willfully ignoring the inevitable cascading and total failure.
oblio 7y ago
As Stevvo said, it's not that they're serious, it's that it's illegal to do otherwise.
- habosa 7y ago
  Traffic laws are the only laws most people (in any country) will disregard willingly without feeling like a criminal. So illegal != taken seriously. In Spain it was both.
bartread 7y ago
I'm not sure what it's like in Spain but, in France, if you hog the outside lane you will get flashed and beeped at. French drivers do not tolerate lane hogs at all and generally manifest excellent lane discipline: I wish the UK were more like that.
- toong 7y ago
  It's not simply against social norms: in (some/most?) European countries you can get a ticket for hogging the left (fast) lane. You are supposed to move over, if traffic allows.
- arkh 7y ago
  > generally manifest excellent lane discipline Until you get to a road with more than 2x2 lanes. You have people half asleep in the middle lane going 10 km/h under the speed limit.
  - balac 7y ago
    Yeah, it works because a lot of motorways in Spain have two lanes, and people like to drive fast, so lane hogging isn't tolerated.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  I've started driving again after a couple of years off, and it still astounds me that people lane hog the middle lane. I don't know if it's laziness, ego, or fear of motorways but it should be taught as a rule. I usually make it a point to overtake and then, if possible, go straight back across to the left lane. Highly doubt the hogger is paying any attention, but I feel more content feeling like I've taught something... Still amazing still motorway driving isn't taught or tested at all (I think? Been quite a while since I got my license). As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there's a lot less hogging in 2 lane scenarios, which I why I try and find A roads now rather than motorways.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    I suspect it's just out of fear. they don't want to deal with cars merging into their lane from entrance ramps.
varshithr 7y ago
There's no concept of lanes in India. Vehicle volume and variety are so huge that it kind of makes sense to have all the vehicles move tightly packed. Comparatively, it's pretty chaotic here.
- adrianN 7y ago
  And a lot more people die per mile.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    It’s a trade off. You can’t neatly organize ox, a guy pulling a heavily loaded cart, an ox driven cart, a bicycle, a scooter, a motorcycle, a rickshaw, a car, and a heavily loaded truck which is probably overcapacity.
    - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
      You can certainly neatly organize those. First of all, ox and horsecarts don't even really need tarmac, and so in many countries where these means of transportation persist, they are only allowed to use the earth surface parallel to the road. Scooters should be expected to do the same, as even the cheap Chinese motorbikes found throughout the developing world have tires thick enough for earth or even sand.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        If you’ve been to India, you will see that there is no earth surface parallel to the road in many places. It’s a path that is two lanes wide, maybe a little longer, and everything is negotiable. It may be possible to reign it in with China style authoritarian rule, but Indian culture is not like that in my experience. Although perhaps it would result in a safer environment.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    A lot of those fatalities are from minor mishaps on mopeds combined with hard surfaces and a lack of helmets.
sershe 7y ago
I've also noticed (around Costa Blanca) how seriously they take tailgating (I mean it as a positive thing). As soon as there was a slow car in the left lane there was another literally 2 meters behind it... I tend to tailgate left lane hogs but I wouldn't ever go so close for safety reasons. In 0-2 minutes, the slow car is merging right. I wonder if those two are related.

by habosa 7y ago

Stevvo 7y ago

In all of Europe, undertaking is illegal. When we come to the US, driving feels like you are in a third world country.

bartread 7y ago
In the UK it's actually not illegal: it's just advised against, and considered bad form in most situations by most drivers. And, of course, if you cause an accident by undertaking the police will (rightly) throw the book at you. Examples where it's considered acceptable to undertake: - In heavier or queuing traffic inside lanes might move faster than outside lanes: this is OK, and it's considered better and safer to stay in lane than keep changing lanes to overtake. - Motorcycles filtering through traffic, which generally occurs between the middle and outside lane on motorways. Where gaps are bigger motorcyclists will often move from the outside to middle lanes to get around slow moving vehicles in the outside lane. Again, this tends to apply when traffic is heavier.
- onion2k 7y ago
  If you do it on a reasonably clear road to get around someone hogging an overtaking lane, and the police see you, they're going to pull you over and give you a fixed penalty notice for careless driving though. I know this from experience.
  - jamiek88 7y ago
    Me too! M4 from London to Cardiff for the Ryder Cup. Had lived in Texas for years, was fresh off the plane and forgot it wasn't legal. No mercy shown! Jokes on them though I never paid the ticket and I'm never going to.
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Your estate will likely pay the ticket with 50 years of interest when you die.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      You've been punished enough by sitting through the tedium of golf tournament. :)
    - wldlyinaccurate 7y ago
      I always find it interesting when people brag about not paying fines — especially when the fine is issued in a foreign country. To me it shows a lack of responsibility and a huge lack of respect for the local laws. I guess not everyone feels that way though.
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        there is a certain cynicism regarding traffic laws in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection or to give the police an excuse to pull you over, absent any real safety concern. in my state, for example, it is against the law to have anything dangling from the rearview mirror. if I so much as forget to take down my parking permit in the morning, I can be pulled over at any time. fwiw, I take traffic flow very seriously. I will always move over if I notice someone driving close behind me.
        bartread 7y ago
        > in the US. many drivers feel that some of the laws are in place for the sole purpose of revenue collection That's not a US only phenomenon. For example, in the UK there is a - somewhat justified - suspicion that some speed[1] cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with revenue raising. [1] Ahem, sorry, I mean "safety" not "speed", obviously.
  - bartread 7y ago
    Interesting. On the A1M heading to and from Peterborough I've also seen them flash and pull people over for lane hogging so at least they're enforcing it both ways. Super annoying when you're cruising along in the inside lane and then have to cross the entire width of the carriageway to overtake some clown hogging the middle lane: always feels a bit risky, especially if there are vehicles coming up from behind in the outside lane. Same when you get someone who's pulled out to overtake a lorry but can't be bothered to pull in again even though the next vehicle they'd overtake is hundreds of metres ahead of them.
- Aengeuad 7y ago
  Like many other things in the Highway Code there may be no specific offence for failing to follow it but the police have enough freedom with fixed penalty notices making disregarding the rules an ill advised activity. https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q891.htm
  - bartread 7y ago
    I have no problem with this as long as they consistently enforce against lane hogging in the same way. (In my A1M example they clearly do.)
- PaulRobinson 7y ago
  The Highway Code says you shouldn't do it unless you're in slow moving traffic. RAC article here: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/ https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/legal/undertaking/ The problem with undertaking for me is that it reduces options when you need them the most. If I'm in the middle lane doing 70mph and thinking "I can't pull into the inside because that car is only 30 foot off my bumper", that driver deciding to keep up with me at 70mph or undertaking reduces my outs in the event of a tyre blowout or other incident (e.g. a broken down car or debris in the middle lane ahead). Where there is a dynamic hard shoulder or all-lane running, options become fewer still and the chance of a problem even higher. And then there are the lorries on the inside of a 50mph average speed check contraflow undertaking in narrow lanes at 0.25mph more than the outside lane - that's just an accident waiting to happen. I've also been on the outside lane overtaking somebody who was doing 65mph in the middle lane with an empty inside lane who as I moved to overtake sped up. Not undertaking: just blocking me from moving past and back into the middle lane. I then had a boy racer come in behind me at 90mph and have to throw the anchor out whilst flashing his lights at me, and my options are basically "hope for the best". We were on a relatively tight corner for a motorway (it's that horrid section of the M60 that runs through Stockport), so deciding to accelerate to get out of this would have meant potentially losing control of the car, and the guy in the middle lane was likely going to pin me there anyway... For me then - especially in the narrow lanes of UK motorways - it is not just about using middle and outside lanes for passing only, there is a responsibility of the drivers on the inside to allow that to happen and give those around them enough options if they need them, and not doing so should be considered just as much a case of careless driving as undertaking in most other scenarios.
samstave 7y ago
So many aspects about driving in the US are so terrible. The road conditions are pretty bad, and what i would like to understand are the gas taxes and other taxes which ostensibly go into road infra. We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going? Some countries have high vehicle costs and their roads to me seem pristine and perfect by comparison. Specifically in fresh memory is both Singapore and Hong Kong. The condition of their roads just seem to be flawless. In the US we even have potholes jokingly having birthdays thrown for them, gas prices include large per gallon taxes and road conditions never appear to improve - and yearly reports of “crumbling infrastructure” and “deteriorating dangerous bridges” keep coming out.
- slavik81 7y ago
  > We have high gas taxes and drive more miles than most countries on the planet - where is that money going? A. You don't have high gas taxes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_tax_in_OECD_countries%2C_2010..png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#/media/File%3AFuel_ta... B. You build a lot of roads.
  - samstave 7y ago
    Nope. California comes in second on the list of states with the highest gas tax at 72.76 cents per gallon. Rising fuel prices and increased taxation are the primary reasons for this. A law that was passed in 2017 allowed the state of California to increase the gas tax by a steep 12 cents, because it seemed like the most viable way to obtain the funds needed to replace several bridges and fund other important road projects. You can expect the state’s gas tax to increase further by 7.5 cents per gallon in a few months. We consume 10% of the US’ gas consumption i. California. We consume more than 40 million gallons per day. There are opaque additonal taxes on each gallon sold at the nearly 9,000 gas stations and billions in taxes are also missing. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/sd-fi-california-gasoline-20180402-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s... And not all taxes are hitting our roads...
    - 7y ago
cmurf 7y ago
Perhaps worse in terms of consistency. Private drivers education, public school drivers education, or uncle Bob can just teachya! The testing is remarkably pathetic. It's impressive this system works as well as it does. Red light runners, meh, just fine them! Pot smokers, fine and imprison them even if they weren't near a vehicle! Honestly it's so backwards.
detritus 7y ago
My experiences of driving in Italy point to a slight disregard for the law in that case - I've never seen more egregious undertaking than I have on the motorways there... .
gharding 7y ago
I used to hold that position too, but then I realized a couple things that could fill several books. It boils down to the fact that the USA was essentially first to build a road network based on assumptions of low population density, high abundance and first to access requisite resources; and assuming a civilized society with a baseline of standards, culture, and customs that were essentially tacit and implicit to the system without having to be regulated or explicitly managed. If you are European, although the significantly increased government control of its population will mitigate things somewhat, reality is that as Europe has now imbued itself with third world people and the customs and proclivities they carry, the road behaviors will also change even more than they clearly have, as anyone who has driven in Europe for more than 20 or so years, can attest to. And before anyone gets triggered on some conditioned and well trained pavlovian assumptions, what I described above was equally observable when East Germans started meshing with West Germany, where after 55 years of having been exposed to relentless psychological engineering to break East Germans of their German-ness and proclivities and identity, they lacked what are commonly understood to be certain German traits and preferences for methodical order, systematic structure, and social courtesy; all of which the East Germans had far less of a connection to. That led to a lot of poor driving on roads and that has really not changed all that much either since as anyone who spends any distinct time on West German Roads and East German roads can attest to, even though the impact is being muddled by things like Polish drivers in East Germany and increasingly foreign drivers from all over the place. Essentially it also comes down to the fact that now people with drivers licenses from various other European countries with lower driving standards, are also just allowed to drive in Germany without having to meet the far higher German driving class standards. It's yet another way in which democracy itself is being utterly disassembled, as foreign minorities are advantaged over native majorities … a total in version of democracy and even basic morality and ethics. As for the USA, things have gotten so bad in many states that just ignoring the overcapacity of most of the road system due to unfettered and uncontrolled invasion by foreigners driving on US roads, you now have a whole ethnic driving license racket going on where an ethnic communities pass their own in spite of essentially not passing or being safe drivers. I know that is not what people here want to hear, but reality simply is that this whole system is failing and it is failing due to deliberate bugs intentionally injected, and instead of fixing those bugs, people are just covering them up and making excuses and using ever mounting number of hacks to obscure and hide the ever more brittle system. It's quite telling that even in this kind of forum no one seems to understand that they are looking at a totally broken system and one that is failing at every increasing speed; all while willfully ignoring the inevitable cascading and total failure.

oblio 7y ago

As Stevvo said, it's not that they're serious, it's that it's illegal to do otherwise.

habosa 7y ago
Traffic laws are the only laws most people (in any country) will disregard willingly without feeling like a criminal. So illegal != taken seriously. In Spain it was both.

bartread 7y ago

I'm not sure what it's like in Spain but, in France, if you hog the outside lane you will get flashed and beeped at. French drivers do not tolerate lane hogs at all and generally manifest excellent lane discipline: I wish the UK were more like that.

toong 7y ago
It's not simply against social norms: in (some/most?) European countries you can get a ticket for hogging the left (fast) lane. You are supposed to move over, if traffic allows.
arkh 7y ago
> generally manifest excellent lane discipline Until you get to a road with more than 2x2 lanes. You have people half asleep in the middle lane going 10 km/h under the speed limit.
- balac 7y ago
  Yeah, it works because a lot of motorways in Spain have two lanes, and people like to drive fast, so lane hogging isn't tolerated.
wastedhours 7y ago
I've started driving again after a couple of years off, and it still astounds me that people lane hog the middle lane. I don't know if it's laziness, ego, or fear of motorways but it should be taught as a rule. I usually make it a point to overtake and then, if possible, go straight back across to the left lane. Highly doubt the hogger is paying any attention, but I feel more content feeling like I've taught something... Still amazing still motorway driving isn't taught or tested at all (I think? Been quite a while since I got my license). As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, there's a lot less hogging in 2 lane scenarios, which I why I try and find A roads now rather than motorways.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  I suspect it's just out of fear. they don't want to deal with cars merging into their lane from entrance ramps.

varshithr 7y ago

There's no concept of lanes in India. Vehicle volume and variety are so huge that it kind of makes sense to have all the vehicles move tightly packed. Comparatively, it's pretty chaotic here.

adrianN 7y ago
And a lot more people die per mile.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It’s a trade off. You can’t neatly organize ox, a guy pulling a heavily loaded cart, an ox driven cart, a bicycle, a scooter, a motorcycle, a rickshaw, a car, and a heavily loaded truck which is probably overcapacity.
  - Mediterraneo10 7y ago
    You can certainly neatly organize those. First of all, ox and horsecarts don't even really need tarmac, and so in many countries where these means of transportation persist, they are only allowed to use the earth surface parallel to the road. Scooters should be expected to do the same, as even the cheap Chinese motorbikes found throughout the developing world have tires thick enough for earth or even sand.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      If you’ve been to India, you will see that there is no earth surface parallel to the road in many places. It’s a path that is two lanes wide, maybe a little longer, and everything is negotiable. It may be possible to reign it in with China style authoritarian rule, but Indian culture is not like that in my experience. Although perhaps it would result in a safer environment.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  A lot of those fatalities are from minor mishaps on mopeds combined with hard surfaces and a lack of helmets.

sershe 7y ago

I've also noticed (around Costa Blanca) how seriously they take tailgating (I mean it as a positive thing). As soon as there was a slow car in the left lane there was another literally 2 meters behind it... I tend to tailgate left lane hogs but I wouldn't ever go so close for safety reasons. In 0-2 minutes, the slow car is merging right. I wonder if those two are related.