Spain's mean streets.

I believe that the man who introduced moped's to the Iberian Peninsula should be taken out the back to have his bollocks drilled off. Some more of that in a bit though. As an adopted home, Spain is truly fabulous and so are it's people. I just wish they'd kept the horse and cart and never evolved into motorists.

The scores on the door

Spain has and does, at a conservative estimate, about a thousand things better than the UK, way too many to mention individually so you're going to have to trust me on that. Quite often though the smallest things are the most irritating, especially on the roads, which is where the indigenous drivers excel themselves, not!!  The clues are there and you don't really need to go looking for them. Take for example the Spanish motorways, every fifteen kilometres or so you'll pass huge luminescent red display boards with useful information to assist people on their journey. On a slow news day, these same boards helpfully inform the pilots of passing cars and trucks how many people have been killed over the previous week-end on the roads. For me, reading that kind of shit is quite sobering, not so it seems for everyone. Shortly after Easter and during all of July and August that big red number can hit three figures as folk from inland head for the coast in their millions, frequently leaving their brains behind in Madrid or wherever.

Elche's new traffic concept - the truck lane

A green man only means  "I dare you" 

In town it isn't much safer either, I know this because I live in a small sized city, where, the only difference is cars and stuff are compelled to go slightly slower by the sheer volume of traffic. The reduced speed doesn't necessarily mean car drivers will obey annoying things like traffic lights or pedestrian crossings either, far from it. Only the lucky few avoid being a bonnet mascot on various SEAT models. In my large town, the fabulous Elche, we have bus lanes, the purpose of which is to encourage more use of public transport, and by association less car usage, because the designated routes are unimpeded, nope!!  For some it's an overtaking lane or convenient place to stop whilst dashing into and out of a shop, I know this too because I've done it! Zebra crossings also mean very little to the natives in my world, to many it's just an attractively painted piece of street on which to leave the car.

Terry Fuckwit's new moped

Now, back to those mopeds, which, in Spain appear to come with two optional extra's, stealth mode and no indicators. The indicator thing I can live with because cars here are the same and I've become an expert at guessing their intentions and jumping back onto the pavement when I get it wrong. The effort involved in deploying eight muscles and a third of a second to flick the stalk up or down is clearly far too onerous, but I digress. Assuming you manage to negotiate that left or right turn without being t-boned in the passenger door by a moped that wasn't in the bus lane the last four times you checked the wing mirror, you may well come across a stationary car in the street without an occupant. It seems it's perfectly okay to just abandon your vehicle anywhere you fancy with no thought for other road users who have to attempt to pass because you thoughtfully put the hazard lamps on. I kid you not, a few weeks back a bloke left his van double parked in a street with cars either side just to spend twenty minutes in a cafeteria with a large glass of wine and a small beer before work. If you get lucky and manage to park on the street within ten minutes of beginning the search, (my personal best is over thirty minutes of cruising round and round town whilst desperate for a pee), don't be too smug. The chances are very high that the space either end of your motor you allowed yourself in order to get out will have been used by a brain damaged moped owner, if you're really unlucky, and this happens, his or her equally dim witted brother or sister will have abandoned his or her hog in the gap at the other end too.

Safer in Calcutta

Periodically, the people in charge in the Town Hall change the side of the street on which you are permitted to park, no seriously, they do. Quite why no-one has adequately explained to me, but imagine trying to turn left into a one-way street and it just so happens this month cars can park on the left hand side of the road. You edge out and edge out and have to trust to luck you aren't going to get a moped rider airborne anytime soon. The chance would be a fine thing.

In fairness, it's way too easy to criticise my adopted country, sure, the lack of road manners is infuriating but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world.