Thursday, May 18, 2006

Defensive Driving 101

I like driving in foreign places. It's always interesting to see the rules, attitudes and courtesies in the rest of the world. But no more current or former British protectorates. Right hand drive cars on the left hand side of the road. The left hand driving doesn't bother me too much. It's the right hand drive with the stick on the left that's rough. My biggest problem was the perspective change when expected to now know where the left side of your car is when on a tight mountain road.
And that was the reality both on Dominica and here in St. Lucia. Both countries have windy mountain roads that are sometimes two lanes, but more often less. Both have bonzai taxi-bus drivers screaming through the hills. St. Lucia actually isn't so bad; I can keep up here. But it's like a rally race through Dominica.
My real fear has been the open sewers and drainage ditches. Both countries have gaping open ditches or concrete gutters along the road instead of shoulders. It's a tough choice between the taxi doing a 4 wheel slide around the hairpin and the gutter. Today today we came across a nice example of what happens when you choose poorly. We've driven by this spot a bunch of times, so this must have happened yesterday. Sad thing is that this spot has more shoulder than most...

6 comments:

Dad said...

I hope that isn't your car in the ditch. Smashing fingers, driving into the ditch, what next.
Watch him Mary!!!!!

steve said...

Com'on now. That's not our car. In fact, I took those pictures while I was driving. And there's another side to the smashed fingers story. It just won't do me any good to talk about it.

Anonymous said...

It was a deer.

Anonymous said...

Hey!

Yeah. You two.

We can't wait to see you:

Our (more prosaic) adventures are here:
http://oregondjc.livejournal.com/#entry_2808

later :-)

D&D

Anonymous said...

Hi Steve--

Eric sent me a link to the blog. I have an email full of suggestions for Sienna and the Palio that one of my advisors--a specialist in medieval Italy--sent to me before we made our trip there a few years ago. I can forward the email to you if you're interested.

I hate to post my email address in a blog, but if you email Eric, he'll forward that to me.

Looks like you're having fun!

--Michele

Anonymous said...

Steve, ahhhh... I won't say it. But there is a french word for this photo. :-)