On driving

For the first time in four months, I drove last weekend, and for the first time in nearly as many years, I drove a manual. This is only significant because in Hungary, automatics are just about unheard of. I noticed the same in Vietnam, France, Switzerland – I would go so far as to guess that outside of North America, manuals rule the road just about everywhere in the world, and I’ve wondered why that is. I have heard manuals are more efficient, so perhaps North Americans are just more wasteful people. Similarly, I do think it has something to do with a driving culture, at least in the United States. There, manuals were the car of choice at one time, but over the years, I suppose automatics were the best way to get a car in every garage, as Roosevelt wished.

But I’m glad things are different here. I don’t really know why, I just like manuals and wish I could drive them better. That they are more prevalent is probably related to the reason people say “liters per kilometer” here whereas I’m used to “miles per gallon.” I discussed this with my friends in France, and they don’t believe me, but I think Europeans say liters per kilometer because (consciously or not) they care more about how much fuel (i.e. liters) has to be expended, whereas Americans care more about how much they can drive (i.e. miles).

There are other differences I like here, too. The traffic lights don’t just change from red to green when it’s time to go, but from red to yellow to green (as well as green to yellow to red, as in the United States) – the extra yellow clearly gives the driver a heads up to get into gear.

What’s more, in Switzerland, when you drive along some highways with traffic lights, they stay red at night but are programmed to turn green just in time for your arrival. The only thing I can compare that to are the traffic lights in Manhattan, which change at regular intervals, as do the ones in Downtown Sacramento, where you can stay in the green if you drive a steady 25 miles per hour.

Although I have seen “Wilkommen…” and “Bienvenue…” on highway signs, more common are the modest signs with town names, the notable part being that when you leave a town, you see the same sign with a red diagonal line drawn across it. Maybe I just haven’t seen this yet in the United States. Maybe I also haven’t noticed a rule my friend says everyone knows: on two-lane highways (four lanes altogether), the right lane is the default and the left lane is only for passing. This I don’t believe. I know there’s a slow lane and a fast lane, but I’ve certainly seen a lot of people pass others from the right (which he says is illegal). But on this continent people seem to follow that rule.

My unquestionable favorite among these vehicular observations first appeared in France. We were driving along the country roads, by rocky cliffs covered with protective nets, when a car flashed its high beams at us as it drove by. So did the next. Not too long after that I saw why: we passed cops parked on the side of the road, checking for drivers who flout the speed limit.

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Reading: Milan Kundera, The Joke