Views on Spain: Driving

Driving in Spain is easy. There is only one rule. If they can do anything stupid and dangerous, they will.

This is particularly true at roundabouts . Look out for everything. Everyone has the right of way. Including cattle and horses, which may travel in the opposite direction.

Beware of the Granada bi pass. There are six lanes of fast moving traffic, all in a hurry to go nowhere. San Sebastian has two names, so does everything else up there. Easy to get lost.

Madrid, I’m told is a nightmare. Never venture there.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

I don't suppose any city is at all pleasant to drive in!

I have been on several day-trips to London with groups of friends, and although our destination was well out of the centre it was still a couple of miles or so within the North-South Circular Road Corrall.

Although everyone around us seemed to be driving fairly sensibly, at least by British urban driving standards, I was glad I was not the driver. I could not cope with it.

Some years ago I had to drive to a place well East of London but most of that was via the M3 then nearly half the circumference of the M25 - which I was surprised to find is well out in the countryside once past the A1. The "sat-nag" still played a mean trick on me only a mile or so short of my destination.

peterlee · M

@ArishMell A lot of roads in East Sussex are closed at night, with no road works taking place. Very disorientated diversions.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@peterlee Are they closed for work taking place in the day?

On one journey I took a cross-country route to give a short-cut and avoid some difficult motorway junctions, within twenty miles of my destination. All went well until an unexpected road-works diversion, and then the "Lady in the Box" was as baffled as me and kept trying to put me back on the closed road.

An overcast sky removed the Sun's use as a rough compass, too. I had to turn the sat-nav off and drive on until I entered a village I could identify, then use the road-atlas to put me back on course.

peterlee · M

@ArishMell Allegedly there are roadworks. But never any workers insight. Ghostly. But planned by done incompetent person in the local council.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@peterlee I would not expect any nocturnal work on minor roads, except for emergency repairs to one or another of the services.

peterlee · M

@ArishMell So why are they closed?

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@peterlee Without actually seeing the site I don't know, and I am not a civil-engineer, but they may have trenches across the width, or have prepared the carriageway for resurfacing and don't want vehicles on it until completed.

It may be irritating but there will be a reason for closing the road; and we'd have more to complain about if no maintenance or repairs were performed.

I sometimes drive through Yeovil, where there seems no end to the road-works around that Somerset town, many apparently just re-modelling junctions for no clear advantage. A resident told me these are planned in the County Town, Taunton, not locally, with little if any consulting the Yeovilians.

Such antics are unlikely on rural lanes though, and the works in your way might be by one of the utility companies. OpenReach perhaps, happily digging holes in roads all over the place so everyone can use web-sites like this at even faster broadband speeds.