{"id":2206,"date":"2003-07-09T18:51:02","date_gmt":"2003-07-09T21:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/bb\/viewtopic.php?p=509"},"modified":"2010-05-08T23:45:16","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T02:45:16","slug":"re-on-cars-renting-and-driving-in-europe-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2003\/07\/09\/re-on-cars-renting-and-driving-in-europe-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Re: On cars: renting and driving in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Traffic laws are generally uniform in all countries we visited; if you’re used to driving in the US or Canada, be sure to look up details, as there are some differences. Turning right on a red light is never allowed, and overtaking another car on the right is generally forbidden. There are complex precedence rules; unless specifically signed, the car coming from your right has precedence if all else is equal. Expect people to know and respect these rules; especially German drivers have a habit of not even looking<\/em> to the left when crossing an intersection. Things are a little more relaxed in Eastern Europe, though, except for drinking and driving, where there’s absolutely zero<\/em> tolerance for alcohol.<\/p>\n

Unless otherwise indicated and depending on the country, speed limits are 50 Km\/hour in urban areas, 90 or 100 Km\/hour on secondary (single-lane) highways, and 120 or 130 Km\/hour on divided (multi-lane) highways. The German Autobahn is an exception; there’s a minimum<\/em> speed of 60 Km\/hour, a recommend speed of 130 Km\/hour, and no<\/em> speed limit at all in the leftmost lane. Avoid that lane unless you have a high-powered car and practice driving at high speed; as I had neither, I usually puttered along at a glacial 120 Km\/hour.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Brazilian highways have a speed limit of 80 Km\/hour for single-lane and 110 Km\/hour for multi-lane; one is usually advised to drive slower because of the frequent pot-holes. In Europe I didn’t see a single pothole outside of the quite frequent and very well signed road work areas.<\/p>\n

Keep an eye on what other drivers do in regard to speed limits. In most areas everybody drove at or at most 10 Km\/hour over the limit. Pedestrians are usually respected, except for Hungary, where they drive more like they do in Brazil – meaning, don’t expect a driver to stop just because you stepped on the road. German and Austrian drivers are the most mild-mannered ones, except on the Autobahn, where most suddenly turn into raving maniacs.<\/p>\n

Generally there are no multi-language highway and traffic signs, so it pays to look up and memorize some common words like “exit”, “attention” and so forth in the various languages. Here’s a good site further detailing the various signs and traffic laws<\/a>. Here’s another one<\/a>. Signs vary considerably from American conventions in some respects, most rental car companies will give you a chart if you ask for one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traffic laws are generally uniform in all countries we visited; if you’re used to driving in the US or Canada, be sure to look up details, as there are some differences. Turning right on a red light is never allowed, and overtaking another car on the right is generally forbidden. There are complex precedence rules; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-zA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}