Whiplash Driving

There is something about this place that I find very confusing. Belgians are, on the whole, very laid back people. They are very polite and low key. They take around two hours to eat a meal. They ride bikes around town to run errands and enjoy the countryside. They love to sit and have a nice leisurely chat over a cup of coffee. Then you take the same relaxed, easy-going people and put them behind the wheel of a car. Every last one of them becomes Mario Andretti. (And they had to be somewhere 10 minutes ago.) It's the craziest thing! I am starting to think of driving here as a form of whiplash. You just can't look everywhere you need to at once. They don't go in for a lot of stop signs here, because that would just slow things down. Instead, they give you yields signs at intersections and round abouts. You slow down just a little bit and then floor it. "Keep on Chugging" seems to be the motto here. But bear in mind, that while you are yielding to the vehicles that are coming at you quickly from every direction, you also have to watch out for the bicycles and pedestrians. There are LOTS of those, by the way, and they have the right-of-way. Every street in town (and most in the country) has a bicycle path on each side of it, so now you are looking both ways for two lanes of motor vehicles, and two lanes of bicycles. Now add to the mix the fact that lots of people also drive scooters, and they also travel in the bicycle lanes. Now add the locals who don't think that you are driving fast enough, and zip around you in two seconds...even when there doesn't seem to be any room to pass. Whew! It's a learning experience. You can tell the people who have been here a little bit. They are the ones who can drive around town, look in every direction at once, and carry on a normal conversation at the same time. I now understand the popularity of all the go-cart tracks here. These casual, laid back Belgians have a need...the need for speed!