Problem
In Bucharest, capital of Romania, we hired a left hand drive car from Thrifty which is the budget branch of Hertz. We realised the two were related when we were directed to a Hertz shuttle van to take us from outside the arrivals hall of Bucharest International airport to the car parking area (Americans say parking lot) where we collected our hie car. Apart from driving on the left, we had no knowledge of diving conditions, vehicles we would encounter, or parking conditions, animals on the road.
Problems and Pleasures
1 Driving in Romania is a delight. Arriving in Bucharest is wonderful. Pictures of palaces, castles, mansions, museums are inside the airport. Driving from Bucharest airport into the centre of Bucharest, you approach through a wide avenue or as the French might say, Boulevard, huge trees, huge embassies and museums and giant circles with multiple exits.
Directions
We had no Satnav in the car. However, thank goodness for Google maps verbal directions from a mobile phone perched on a shelf in the front of the Skoda. Once or twice the directions were after we had heard no directions and had already chosen an exit.
Pedestrian crossing in Romania. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Pedestrians and Pedestrian Crossings
Bucharest and the second city we visited, Brasov, and the smaller villages, have lots of pedestrian crossings, a few with lights, but mostly either black and white zebra crossings or red and white crossings. Occasionally there were speed bumps or narrower rumble strips to slow cards as they approached pedestrian crossings.
As in England, pedestrians often walked across listening to phones. Sometimes another car or pedestrian would beckon a pedestrian. Occasionally the pedestrian would be beckoned into the path of a second car overtaking the stationery car.
Romanian words P E R I C O L (danger) DE (of) ACCIDENTE (accident). Photo by Angela Lansbury, copyright.
Warning Signs
Signs in cities warn you to slow, or accident black spots, danger.
Countryside
Signs in the mountains and countryside warn of slow to a certain speed in kilometres, slippery road, hair pin bends, danger, donkeys and carts, cows on road.
Animals, squirrels, birds
We encountered herds of cows. First one cow sees you, then several more. Cows were being driven downhill. Later another driver in our group saw the cows being milked.
Sheep on the road. Flocks of goats.
Birds hopping across. Some creatures, such as owls, play dead in the face of danger.
Coming around a bend we saw a baby squirrel, which made the driver brake and slow to a halt, to the consternation of the car behind. I can't remember whether the driver hooted the squirrel. I tried to look back and see if there was a mess on the road, meaning another road kill like others we had seen, saw nothing, but then we were round the next hairpin bend.
Accidents In Villages and Cities
The first accident we saw was on the main motorway. The potholes were atrocious. Cars and lorries and buses and coaches were weaving between giant potholes, often crossing to the wrong side of the road to avoid potholes. On one occasion a section of deep drop road was cordoned off sending traffic suddenly veering into oncoming traffic.
Upside down car on Romanian road. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
On two lane road we passed an upside down car. One of our UK passengers thought that the Romanian accident rate was higher than the British accident rate.
From the motorway across flat fields with conical hills in the distance, we ended up on the beautiful road to Brasov, up through forested mountains, climbing on hairpin bends. We met a traffic jam approaching one of the tourist town festooned with Cola signs, huge ads, chalet style hotels with steep rooftops, like Disneyland meets Blackpool (for my American readers, Coney island or Disney land - a combination of delightful buildings, immaculate scenery and crowds of jolly pedestrians and souvenir shops).
You hear the sirens and see flashing lights. The word for police in Romanian is almost the same but looks a bit like Political.
The word for ambulance looks the same but again add a T.
Finally we round the cause of the traffic jam. Two written-off vehicles, head on collision. That was the second accident we saw.
Pedestrian Accient
The third accident was a pedestrian. On the outskirts of the town, onto the motorway, a very fast two lane road, a few houses to the right, a vehicle parked half way across the edge of the road and slightly into the road. We saw the flashing lights. Our driver slowed down because of the vehicle partly in the lane ahead and people milling about.
Then we saw three of four people lifting somebody onto what looked like a stretcher. Good, I thought. Help on its way. Alas no.
Then we saw the helpers zip up black around the body. A body bag.
A dead pedestrian. Later, over dinner in our hotel, another of our group of thirty said their driver passed the scene earlier and had seen attempts at resuscitation by pumping on the chest. Obviously, alas, not successful.
More photos on these accidents, and warning signs, later.
We were struck by the number of accidents, three in our first week in Romania. Then we saw another major accident involving two vehicles and an upside down car at S t a n s t e d in the UK. (See previous post.) Still to come: articles on Romania, Dracula, and Romanian wines.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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