Driven Crazy
Drivers in Portugal are interesting to say the least. Anyone with half an interest in people-watching would certainly enjoy themselves here; every street is an adventure. Psychologists, I imagine, would marvel at the sheer power the simple automobile has over a human being’s psyche here.
Two instances today made me smile. Well, not sure the first one really raised a smile. An eyebrow or two, maybe.
The first occurred at around two this afternoon. I left work at the mid-point of a double lesson. I crossed the road (not at a zebra-crossing, which I assume induced some kind of rapid bowel shakery / rage in some nearby observers) and proceeded to the local shop for a snack. As I was crossing the road I noticed a hearse with a draped coffin inside around 15 meters to my north. Now, when I see a hearse with somebody’s dearly departed inside, I would normally associate this with decorum, respect and dignity. It was, however, on a road. A road in Lisbon.
The hearse wanted to turn left, which, in Europe, means he has to drive through the opposite side of the road. This was not possible, since a car had driven too far forward and was blocking the junction. He could not proceed because he was being blocked off by a car coming out of the hearse’s desired road. They were blocking each other off; a vicious triangle. As I looked at this situation, I marvelled at the incredible breakdown of logic and the immediate ascent into primatal behaviour. The simplest solution appeared to be for the guy driving out of the hearse’s desired junction to reverse, say, two metres? This would then allow the oncoming guy to continue driving, the hearse to enter his junction, normal traffic to resume flowing and everybody to live happily ever after. But this is Portugal. Instead, the guy remained in his car, waiting for somebody else to move. The hearse couldn’t; it was indicating left and had no other safe option. The other guy couldn’t reverse; there were already three or four cars behind him and he couldn’t move forward because the junction driver was there (hence him reversing being the simplest solution). So do they settle it in an adult, gentrified manner? Well, no.
The guy who should be moving is motionless. The guy who can’t go forward or back sees red. With all the calmness of a bull watching its young being wrapped in a red cloth by a man in a big, red suit and being stolen, he starts waving his arms around both inside the car and out of the window. I think I could see steam emanating from his ears. The oblivious driver didn’t oblige; why would he? It’s up to somebody else to move; the Portuguese driver is always right.
So it’s effectively a street stalemate. Nobody’s moving. I’ve been here a year, so I knew what was coming. Anybody would.
Fifteen seconds after coming to a halt, about four or five cars back, I could hear it:
*Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.*
You see, to a driver here, remaining still on a road is an infuriating, unacceptable experience. I lived on a one-way street last year and have seen drivers holding their horns for as long as twenty seconds when an AMBULANCE had stopped to retrieve somebody.
I hear it again:
*Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
Eventually, the driver with the simplest solution available to him arouses himself from his stupor and decides to reverse. He reversed! Praise be to God!
The driver stuck in the middle proceeded, after wiping the ear-steam from his windscreen. The hearse and its unfortunate passenger continued left and drove on, not before the driver, also red-faced, leant out of his window to wave BOTH fists at the slightly slow driver who was in the wrong for all of 45 seconds.
I see this most days here. I am fully aware that Portugal does not have the worst drivers in the world and I am also aware that England has far worse. What does confuse me is how intoxicatedly angry the drivers get here when they sit behind a wheel. It’s like a chemical reaction; it’s dog-eat-dog on the roads and I’m surprised people haven’t learned that it just makes them look… childish! I’m twenty-four now and I’m watching men in their forties and fifties react worse than one of my junior students when I double their homework. They are rarely still for longer than a minute or two; does it really hurt them *so* much? The *beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* used to wake me up so frequently when I lived in the Bairro Alto; I guess when the red mist sets in, they forget they’re in a residential neighbourhood upon pressing their anger buttons and it’s not only pathetic and petty, it’s also selfish.
Oh yes, and the second instance happened after I had finished work. I was waiting at a zebra crossing (like a good boy) and didn’t cross because, although many of the traffic lights were red, there was still one lane behind the other lanes permitted to continue. An older, bearded man was waiting there with me and decided to proceed anyway. I wondered if he was aware of the lane that was still going; three or four cars were heading his way. The traffic light turned amber, and as the car was about to pass through and continue his journey, the bearded man walked straight in front of it. There was no dramatic braking, but the driver had to stop quicker than he would have wanted and, of course, he missed his chance to go. He would now have to wait for a whole minute.
You have never seen anyone react so physically.
I don’t think the driver said anything; his mouth didn’t appear to open. All I saw were two flailing arms move up and down above his head and onto his dashboard. His world came crashing down around him and, as I passed him when the green man appeared, it was clear that his day had been ruined.
I don’t know what it is, but something changes the behaviour of people here when they are sat behind a steering wheel. And you know what? If nobody gets hurt then it is just fucking hilarious to watch from a safe pavement.
Kyle Curtis said,
March 5, 2011 at 11:26
Yeah maybe us non-drivers just don’t understand. You haven’t done your test yet, right?
Anyway, I coincidentally witnessed a similar traffic situation yesterday on the way to work when getting the bus from Hauptbahnhof to Nordbahnhof. It basically just goes down the one road, Invalidenstr., and just as it gets to Nordbahnhof (where there is a lot of construction work going on anyway) it needs to make a left turn, which doesn’t only cross the other lane, but also the trams that use the road. If you’re not familiar with this wonderful road, then I should also state that it’s actually so narrow that the car lanes are basically the tramlines, so the trams are also part of the traffic. This is thanks to the several stretches of roadworks that are eternally clogging of the sides of the road. Oh and the particular part of this road in question is right next to a crossroads, and hence a traffic light.
So anyway, it was about 8:40am and thus rush hour as the big double decker bus I was riding pulled up to the turn-off, when the road to the left was free. There was a whole row of cars and a tram I think backed up for some way, but the bus would be able to manouvre itself to where it needed to go. However, the first car (actually a truck) in the, let’s call it the ‘second queue’ (with the ‘first queue’ being that from the crossroads to the turning) decides at the last minute to move 5m forwards, blocking off the bus. I can only think that he wanted to stop cars from coming out of the junction and getting in front of him, which is pretty petty in my opinion, especially when I think that vehicles like buses and trams, which carry many more people than your average motor vehicle, who also have places to go/work to attend, should have priority. It’s just more economic. But I guess that is just a moral question and therefore we get people (far too often) who only care about themselves.
So the thing that was most amazing about this episode, in contrast to what you describe Neal, is that there was no beeping, nobody got overtly irritated and there were no hand gestures or shouted expletives. To be honest, I felt like the only one who WAS getting annoyed by it, out of all the people in the bus, the people trying to pull out of the road, and the people stacked up behind the bus, who couldn’t get past to continue down Invalidenstr. It wasn’t the question of time, or that we had to waited 3/4 minutes more than we should that touched a nerve, but simply the fact that this one man, in his truck could hold up so many people. I doubt he was even in a rush.
So the end of this long, drawn-out story is, the traffic lights finally turned green, the truck moved out of the way and the bus turned into the desired road and continued forth to Nordbahnhof.
You know, I just thought what a great year abroad project theme this would have made. I mean, I say “great”, but it seems a lot can be written on the matter.
Kyle Curtis said,
March 5, 2011 at 11:28
That comment is like a blog entry in its own right. Maybe I should take up this blog writing shiz again. I’ll do it tomorrow…
nealhocking said,
March 5, 2011 at 14:47
It’s funny how people react differently in different places. Here there would have been carnage. I don’t know if it’s a Portuguese thing, an Iberian thing or just a Western European thing. But if your situation had happened here, there would’ve been carnage.
By the way, I have technically been a driver for 6 years (I passed my test when I was 18 and have a pink licence); I’ve just never had the money to buy a car.
Thanks for the post, though. You should get your blog up again! I’d love to read about more friends; I haven’t used mine nearly enough and should update it more frequently with stories, photos and the like. Maybe I will try harder.
Joana Brito said,
March 7, 2011 at 23:21
I must confess that I’m not one of the most patient drivers out there in Lisbon, the “arms” part you referred are common, but even I can’t understand that absolutely bloody annoying habit of the Portuguese people to “BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP” at every second… (even if you see some **really** stupid things out there sometimes)
Oh well.. I only wish I was a cop on those situations :P