I was reading the other day about the late, great Zoran Đinđić. I was interested to read in Wikipedia that (and I like they way this is put) many people felt he was, at the time, the best hope for Serbians to become "normal" Europeans. Certainly Gs mother thinks this. "If he was still alive, we would be in the EU." But what are Normal Europeans? Tough one to be sure. What links the person in Athens with the one in Helsinki? This is a theme that I would like to develop later, but let's focus on one thing that I've been exposed to a lot during the past week, and that makes Serbia very abnormal in the context of Europe: Driving.
Now I must say I've driven in many European places with crazy drivers: Crete, Greece, Sicily, Marseilles and other more terrifying places like Istanbul & Tunis. And based on this I'd have to say that people in Serbia drive more like those in Turkey or Tunisia than those in Spain or Germany. I've had crazy driving experiences in France, Portugal, Italy - the usual stuff: tailgating, rude hand gestures, speeding, etc. And I always feel like Germans are rather brutal, or at least inconsiderate on the road, even when they are being safe. But in these places I've experienced nothing like those I experienced in just six days of driving in Serbia. Overtaking at speed on the left shoulder when somebody is waiting at a pedestrian crossing - mothers with children carefully leaning out past my car to avoid instant death. An eight year old child nervously and quite desperately trying to cross the road to his mother only to be sworn at by savages in white vans. Driving in the middle of a two lane national road under the assumption that people coming the other direction will just get out of the way on the hard shoulder. Actually pushing a car that is, in your opinion, taking too long to go around a large gaping hole in the road. Tailgating, gesticulating and honking impatiently at the driver in front of you in a construction zone on the Autoput when the other driver is doing 80km/h in a 40km/h zone, and knows (as well as you do) that there is a police speed control 1km ahead. Making it a habit to reverse on the Autoput when you've missed a junction (and well done, you've put your hazards on, that'll stop all those over-taking lunatics behind you). Normal? Hardly.
The other rather savage thing is the attitude towards seatbelts. In the seventies and eighties in Alberta (my sometimes redneck home province in Canada), when the laws about seatbelts gradually came into force, there was a lot of complaining and I had mostly forgotten about all of this until I drove with passengers (or as one) in Serbia. This week I've heard the same moronic statements I remember from Alberta 25-30 years ago. "Seatbelts trap you in a burning car, or one that is submerged under water" or "You don't have to wear a seatbelt here" or "Don't you trust my driving?" And odd behavior too: I see people taking the belts off (say) when they get off the Autoput, or when they get close to home, or taking them off on the Autoput once they are on the straight. I half-wonder if it might be embarrassing to be seen to be wearing one. Incredibly, at least one of the ex-pats we know (i.e. returned to Serbia after years of living in Normal Europe) also has this attitude, looking at me like I'm somehow less of a man for insisting that she wear one. For me seatbelts in the car are like slippers in a Serbian house - its dangerous not to be wearing them. Anyway, all rather primitive, rather 30 years ago, and not very, ahem, normal European.
I often think that something said in the US version of The Office applies here. When sycophantic employee Dwight Shrute is asked by noodle-head boss Michael Scott about the most inspirational thing that he was ever told by him, he answered immediately that it was: "Don't be an idiot", clarifying that now "whenever I'm about to do something, I ask myself 'would an idiot do this?' and if the answer is 'yes', I don't do it". Applies, seemingly, on the road here. Would an idiot put his blinkers on and reverse 500m to get back to a junction on a busy motorway to save ten minutes?
And more seriously, for any Road Gorilla who might getting upset about this as some kind of slight on his (or her) manliness, watch these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVBfMMMUsGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb5q_YYpxB0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1HV5h4K8D0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT5e44lty88
And you will change your driving habits forever.
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