Driving in Europe
After the past two weeks of driving in Europe, I have some observations about why it's different than driving in the US. Not bad (mostly), just different.
Signage: This is the biggest differentiator that I can put my finger on has to do with signage. It's uncommon for city streets to be clearly marked with their name. The signs are generally only on the right side of the roadway (to be seen by drivers), affixed to buildings, and with rather small print.
Highway signs aren't much better. Highways are most commonly identified by the destination city. Consider, if you will, highway (WA) 99 towards the airport. If all you saw to lead you towards highway 99 was a sign (in blue or green, depending on the size of the highway) saying simply "Burien", would you be able to identify the right road? Naturally, natives or locals to the area will be able to navigate in this way, but as a foreign traveler in unknown territory, this can be confusing. Further, without a strong sense of the geography of the region or country, how am I to tell if I want the road bound for Bologna or Modena, if I'm trying to find the Ferrari factory?
Roadways: Roads are narrower. Especially city streets. Naturally, there are highways, of course, but even some of the roads connecting small towns are very narrow, sometimes not even wide enough to be marked with a center line. In general, road quality is much better. I saw very few roads with any sort of damage such as cracks or potholes. City streets wide enough for parallel parking on the sides are exceedingly rare.
Traffic lights: Traffic lights are also rare, at least in the smaller Italian towns where I was vacationing. They're also placed on the near side of the intersection, so if you're the first in line, you might have to crane a bit to be able to see it. Or, shocker, it might mean that you don't drive all the way into the intersection to stop at the red light. In many of the European countries I've visited, the light will show red and yellow simultaneously to indicate that the light is about to turn green. Italy, oddly, doesn't use this convention.
Signage: This is the biggest differentiator that I can put my finger on has to do with signage. It's uncommon for city streets to be clearly marked with their name. The signs are generally only on the right side of the roadway (to be seen by drivers), affixed to buildings, and with rather small print.
Highway signs aren't much better. Highways are most commonly identified by the destination city. Consider, if you will, highway (WA) 99 towards the airport. If all you saw to lead you towards highway 99 was a sign (in blue or green, depending on the size of the highway) saying simply "Burien", would you be able to identify the right road? Naturally, natives or locals to the area will be able to navigate in this way, but as a foreign traveler in unknown territory, this can be confusing. Further, without a strong sense of the geography of the region or country, how am I to tell if I want the road bound for Bologna or Modena, if I'm trying to find the Ferrari factory?
Roadways: Roads are narrower. Especially city streets. Naturally, there are highways, of course, but even some of the roads connecting small towns are very narrow, sometimes not even wide enough to be marked with a center line. In general, road quality is much better. I saw very few roads with any sort of damage such as cracks or potholes. City streets wide enough for parallel parking on the sides are exceedingly rare.
Traffic lights: Traffic lights are also rare, at least in the smaller Italian towns where I was vacationing. They're also placed on the near side of the intersection, so if you're the first in line, you might have to crane a bit to be able to see it. Or, shocker, it might mean that you don't drive all the way into the intersection to stop at the red light. In many of the European countries I've visited, the light will show red and yellow simultaneously to indicate that the light is about to turn green. Italy, oddly, doesn't use this convention.
posted by Sanford Owings at 7:33 AM
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