Driving Like a French Boy Racer!

I thought after driving in Italy for a month I saw all the crazy shit there was to see in the driving department.

The drive from Andorra to Mont Pellier France was interesting and at times absolutely terrifying!

The first part of the drive was the usual twisty mountain road, complete with precipitous drops, the kind of drops that would ensure a certain fiery death if a momentary lapse of concentration was experienced.

The real nasty shit occurred as we drove towards Perpignan along the narrow twisty roads. There were many pull outs along the way, more than I have seen anywhere in Europe. However the impatient drivers were tail gating so close that it was impossible to pull over safely without them plowing into the back of my Citroen C3. There were several instances where we were passed at extremely high rates of speed around blind corners.

Driving around corners is scary at the best of times because the oncoming traffic is at time stratling the centreline.

I kept thinking to myself – what makes these drivers behave as they do? – is it that they know the roads like the back of their hands? The black skid marks embedded on the roads strewn with glass and the constant stream of screaming ambulances would seem to dispel this theory.

I have come to the conclusion that these drivers are just plain insane. They take major risks to make small gains in time savings. These drivers are lulled into complacency due to the infrequency of spectacular fiery crashes (those events happen to other people). I have no problem if the gene pool of insane drivers is depleted through their actions and natural selection – I just don’t personally want to be involved in the process.