Quite mildly wierder - my hometown Victoria, BC has kind of a funky layout on the tip of this island, and is super annoying with way too many streets jogging hither and thither. Or, just changing names along the exact same way, like Harriet/Boleskine/Saanich/Tattersall Rd(s).
I’ve not been to Egypt, but as a resident of South Africa I have just assimilated the road culture and it no longer bothers me.
Also I drive a large truck, which has a level of intimidation (Toyota D4D). I got it because I had both kids and dogs and I wanted a car that could separate the two. But though heavy on fuel it garners some level of respect - undeserved in my case, from the moment I got my license I chose to “drive like a granny”, follow the rules, ignore the idiots and parallel park correctly.
Still, there is a certain reputation for Toyota truck drivers, and as I am in my 50s, and have a beard and a beer belly, I fit a sterotype at first glance that I am absolutely and completely not.
Dear lord that sounds like a nightmare. I will not drive in foreign countries anymore. Too old and I just can’t manage the unpredictable roundabouts - even in Aruba.
It was the road (I forget what it was called, if I ever knew) between Maputo and Nelspruit that used to worry me - probably more on the Mozambique side than the SA side. I was pregnant while living in Maputo and went regularly to Nelspruit to see an obstetrician.
We never had any problems, but there were stories of crashes in remote spots due to crazy-fast drivers. It’s probably better now - this was 27 years ago.
My worry is driving in the UK and associated left-hand countries, and forgetting that I am no longer in the States anymore. I did a lot of cruising on my computer driving sims staying in the left lane before my trip to South Africa 2 decades ago, which definitely helped, and I only fucked up once, without incident. But my driving reflexes have been greatly honed driving here, and in an emergency situation I fear my reflexes will override the local laws.
Europe also apparently has speed drones pretty much EVERYWHERE, and I don’t want to come home only to find half a dozen tickets in my mail, nor do I want to be driving there in deadly fear of one of them snapshotting my ass if I barely go over the 5-10 kph grace limit. Annnd before someone says it, there are times when speeding up is the safest move, but there’s no way to argue with a robot.
I do ache to go on both the Autobahn and the Nurburgring tho note.
Egypt is just typical Africa driving. Horns blaring constantly, six lanes of traffic where there should be four (at most). Uganda was not much better, and Bamako was worse. Seemed like every week another truck would go off the bridge and into the Niger River.
It works both ways.
I was driving home in my F-350 Crew Cab long-bed (a big truck), when someone pulled out of the exit from a local resort. I watched them stop, look right, and then proceed. I was able to swerve around them, and I could see the horrified look on the driver’s face as I barely missed T-boning them.
Certainly does. Coming from the UK and very frequently driving on vacation in Europe, you’re going to forget get it wrong sooner or later. I mean, half a dozen or so times in forty-odd years. I get it wrong more often than Mrs T does, but she holds the record for the best: on the presqu’île de Quiberon she managed to go the wrong way round a roundabout. (Eh, there was no other traffic - no harm, no foul.)
j
After very nearly dying by blithely stepping off a curb into the path of a bus here in my very own USA albeit in an unfamiliar downtown on a one-way street with traffic approaching from my right (IOW the reverse of normal US traffic), I’ve adopted the habit of looking both ways every time before stepping off the curb. Including pulling out while driving even if intending only to go halfway. If nothing else, crazies be everywhere.
Like any human effort I can’t claim 100% success on doing that. But it’s pretty close after years of practice. IMO not a bad idea for most of us to adopt.
I look both ways even on a one-way street or roundabout, because I have so little faith in the competence of other drivers.
Exit 4 on I-83 in Shrewsbury, PA has what PennDOT calls a Diverging Diamond Interchange. In order to reduce left turns, the surface street crosses itself at signaled intersections, travels on the left side while going under the highway, then crosses back at another signaled intersection.
PennDOT may be correct that it improves traffic flow, but I’ve found it very unpleasant to drive on each time I take this exit.
If you don’t like On-The-Job-Training while driving, you can read about how this intersection works here:
There’s at least one out here, too:
That one even adds what looks like two frontage roads on the northbound side.
DDs and the more exciting SPUI*s are the coming thing in major intersection or freeway on/off-ramp design. So expect to see more of them popping up anywhere a major high-traffic intersection is extensively renovated
* See:
If you’ve got 20 minutes, Road Guy Rob explains the diverging diamond quite well:
The click-bait title does it no favors. Of course you’ll drive on it if you’re near there. Whether you want to or not.
I found a short animation of a DD which clarifies how it works.
Also - I forgot about this - coming back from Strasbourg, we drove through the Tunnel Maurice-Lemaire. Not the weirdest road ever, but by a distance the longest tunnel I’ve ever driven - at about 7 km it’s long enough to make you happy to see daylight again. It’s a repurposed rail tunnel, so it’s not very wide. Here’s a brief video of it.
j
We’ve a diverging diamond interchange going in about 35 miles south of us, should be done by the end of the year. I’m looking forward to trying it; it was previously a heavy use interchange with lots of accidents and hopefully things will be better.
We recently replaced a sorta-cloverleaf with a (widened) DD near here. The difference in traffic throughput is easily double. And it’s far harder to saturate as traffic builds. IOW it degrades more gracefully than the typical freeway-to-boulevard connection.
They feel kinda weird the first couple times you do it, but real quickly everybody catches on.
Can recommend.
Yep, but you dont even really notice it, as the two sides are pretty far apart.
I have driven both of “the crookedest street in the world” " in San francisco. One is famous it is Lombard street- but it is really crooked? It would be straight (and very steep) except large planters are to make a driver curve back and forth. Then there is Vermont Street a residential street in Potrero Hill, which really curves. but SF doesnt advertise it as the residents dont want the traffic.
Also out in the CA desert there is (or was) a road that when you drove on it at a certain speed- played a tune- a bit of the William Tell Overture.