Saturday 21 January 2012

Red light

I am so obviously a Newbie in Bodrum.  It's almost as if I have a "JUST OFF THE BOAT" sign on my head.  You'll pick me out immediately if we cross paths in Bodrum. I'm the one standing at the traffic lights waiting for the green man to flash while everyone else streams across the road on many differing tangents.  I'm even more obvious because the lights at my nearest crossing only have a green and red man working on one side, so for half my journey I have to stand with my head twisted back and up trying to see the signal behind me. We didn't have traffic lights in the eighties and 50% of the car drivers in Bodrum still think that we don't. Nearly every time I cross when I should, at least two or three cars dodge around me.  I divide drivers into 4 categories:
1. The "I'm so important/rich that traffic lights don't apply to me"
2. The "It's only just gone red so I should go through or else the driver behind me will think I'm a wimp"
3. The "The driver in front of me went through on red, so I will too"
and 4. It's red so I'll stop. (Probably a woman with origins outside Turkey  or a man with a foreign relation in the car or there is a traffic cop on the corner)
As it's only January and traffic is light, I know I am only setting myself up for mental illness by being bothered by this. Roll on July. If you see a demented woman at the Tansas cross roads with a Large School Patrol Lollipop do say hello.

5 comments:

  1. Welcome to Bodrum. You'll soon get used to the frenetic habits of the locals.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just saw a dog negotiate the traffic better than I do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love this post! Hope you don't mind, I'm going to feature an excerpt of it on my blog. I'm currently putting together a series of transport related articles - and your assessment of the red light dilema will be great to include in my Car Rental article. I'll include a link back to your blog. thanks RJ

    ReplyDelete
  4. I took me a while to learn to read Turkish traffic lights, green-go, Amber - go faster. red - what the hell go anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's a good lesson to learn, Hocam.

    ReplyDelete