driving in barbados

Driving here has got to be the worst in the world… and I do not say that lightly.

I’ve been ranting on for ages about the lack of any common sense or understanding of anything remotely related to the rules of the road demonstrated by the majority of drivers here in Barbados, and it really drives me up a wall. How is it, that so many people have absolutely no clue what they are doing? How did these people get a license in the first place? It really is disgusting to drive up to a 4-way stop, an apparently completely unheard of thing, and see people flying through the intersection as though they had right of way. Its called a 4-way stop for a reason morons. Heaven help us, but the lights at the 3-way intersection near my house have been out for a while, and none of the locals seem to understand the concept of a flashing red light. A flashing red light means you stop when you get to the line, not that you can go if the person in front of you just went… this is how accidents are caused. The best part of it all is that if you try to use the intersection correctly, you get yelled at by the morons trying to barge through. How dare you get in their way on their road!

Perhaps the only thing worse than those that are clueless, are those that known just a little… for they attempt with much audacity to apply their miniscule knowledge to aspects of driving that are completely different. I refer specifically in this case to one motorist who attempted to push in front of me  in traffic at an intersection in town. I was turning left, and he was coming out of a one-way street to the right. Clearly it was my turn, as the standard for merging lanes would conclude, but not only that as we drive on the “wrong side of the road” I have right of way when turning left as motorists coming from the opposite direction must turn across traffic to make what would be a right turn for them. Imagine my amusement when I had to sit on my horn at the little white car attempting to push in front of the large green truck… but far better was further down the road when, having yelled at me from the first, the motorist pulled alongside my truck and yelled, and I quote: “I had the right of way! I was on the right, you have to give way to the right”. It should be noted that we have many roundabouts (rotaries…) here, on which you give way to vehicles already on the roundabout, ie vehicles on the right. My amused response was that we were not on a roundabout so this obviously did not apply… The sheer idiocy of it all has amused me no end since.

When will Bajan motorists learn the rules of the road?

September 23, 2008 | Categories: barbados, daily life, ranting | Leave A Comment »