A note on driving in South Africa.

[randomness]

Driving in South Africa is generally pretty straightforward, if you're familiar with driving on the left side of the road. (It was fortunate on this trip that I'd already driven in Thailand, which also drives on the left. However, I still find myself turning on the windshield wipers at inappropriate times.)

One custom on two lane undivided roads is that vehicles move over into the breakdown lane so that faster traffic can pass. If someone is approaching you from behind, you move over, they pass you, and then they sometimes flash their hazard lights to say "Thank you". (You can, at your option, flash your high beams 'You're welcome', but though this is understood, it is rare.)

This convention is observed sufficiently regularly that failure to do so is considered rude. If you see two cars side-by-side coming towards you and the car which is overtaking has drifted slightly into your lane, you are also expected to move over into your breakdown lane. Failure to do so will probably cause a collision since neither of the two other drivers has much room to maneuver, and your combined speed is likely in excess of 220 km/h.

It occurs to me that for this custom to work a) the breakdown lane must be reliably passable at highway speeds, and b) the breakdown lane must generally be clear. (Well, and c) everyone has to know and follow the convention.) Both of these conditions seem to apply in the Western Cape. All the hard shoulders I saw were clear of sand or dirt, and in as good repair as the travel lanes. There were very few cars, people, or other obstructions on the shoulder. When I did see vehicles stopped they were pulled partly off the road and had their hazard lights on. It's likely this is because people know to loiter on the shoulder invites being struck at 120 km/h.

I don't know if this custom is observed anywhere else, but it is very useful here, as most of South Africa's roads are two-lane, undivided, hard surface, with wide shoulders. It means that you can pretty much drive at whatever speed you like, because if you are going faster than someone ahead of you, they get out of the way. If you want to drive more slowly than other people, you won't slow anyone else down, as long as you're willing to move over.

Comments

[totient]

sounds like a lousy country for a bike ride...

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's true! I haven't seen many cyclists here, and none so far in the countryside. I saw one guy in the street here in Cape Town, at midday, and one kid with a bicycle on the sidewalk.

I imagine there are a lot of other dangers besides traffic for cyclists here.

This reminds me of driving in Texas....

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

But only because I was there over the weekend, with a driver who slows down to birdwatch and gets off the road frequently to let faster people pass, which is perhaps somewhat because she likes to slow down to birdwatch.

The technique also came in handy while viewing the wreckage of Claudette.

[fin9901.livejournal.com]

This is in fact a custom on major roads in Texas that are still only 2-lane. My cousin the truck driver was telling me once about driving in Texas, and while he was passing someone who had done the right thing, up over the ridge ahead comes two cars that don't know about this, so the passing car is in his lane coming right at him.

What does he do? Well, he can't head to the breakdown lane, because there's a car already there. So, he swerves a lane to the *left*, and the car that should have gotten into the breakdown lane in the first place gets an instant clue and heads there, in time for all the vehicles that were otherwise doomed to a head-on collision to pass each other, but forked. And since there was more traffic behind them, they had to fall in line to the same pattern, until it cleared up enough that he could get back in his proper lane.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Today I saw more cyclists. In small towns, people do seem to cycle around, off the main highways.

I even saw a group of about a half-dozen cyclists together in the emergency lane of the N2 (this is the major highway, occasionally motorway quality, going from Cape Town east, through Port Elizabeth, East London, and Durban). They had a VW chase car with its hazard lights on rolling along behind them.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I saw something along these lines today. More absurd but less spectacular.

Slow tractor-trailer moves into the breakdown lane. Slightly faster (90 km/h or so) tractor-trailer begins to pass the first, in the normal travel lane. Two passenger cars, impatient with the second tractor-trailer's progress, begin to jockey for position in the opposite travel lane and encroach into the opposite breakdown lane.

After some indecisive nosing around at around 110-120 km/h, the two passenger cars manage to get past the two tractor-trailers pretty much abreast, leaving very little space for anyone coming the other way. Fortunately, there wasn't anyone coming.

The driver of the bus I was on just shook his head. "Crazy. No one has any patience."

Later on we saw an overturned tractor-trailer that had gone out of control, rolled, and dumped its load of chicken feed into the opposite lanes of the motorway.

Our bus driver said those guys sometimes get a little ahead of themselves. "I was driving to Johannesburg one time, doing 150 or 160, and this rig goes by me doing 170 to 180. Cocky bastard."