The roads

Many Romanian taxi drivers have asked me what I think of the roads in Bucharest.  Of course, there are many holes in the roads, but most Romanians don?t believe me when I see that there are holes in the streets in America too. Around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, the roads get broken and full of holes after every winter. This is normal in a climate that has cold winters. The water gets in the cracks and spaces in the roads and when the water freezes, it expands and breaks the concrete.

Also, in Washington, DC the roads had huge holes in them. Most of the holes were caused by never ending construction projects.  Government contractors were putting in fiber optic cables under the roads, but they would leave the ditches across the road unfilled or very poorly filled in. Sometimes wheels would be completely ripped of a car by these trenches.

In Pennsylvania you can also see horses with carts on the road. I like to tell people in Romania this so they can imagine that in parts of rural America life isn?t so much different than here. But, in America you can find a little bit of the whole world in one community or another. The Amish community is a strict Menonite Christian sect and their religious beliefs do not allow them to use machines that are not powered by humans or animals. They can have electric lights if someone else turns them on and they will ride in a car, but not drive one. You can see many of these people in horse drawn carts on the back roads of Pennsylvania, so you have to stay aware of them, as you do in Romania.

The attitude of drivers is very different here from what I?m used too. It is much more aggressive here. Yes, you will probably encounter one or two fast or impatient drivers in a day in America, but in Bucharest, the careful, patient and conscientious driver is a minority. Romanian drivers love to use their horns to herd the cars in front of them forward. They love to race as fast as they can just a few streets to the next stop light where they then have to destroy their brakes to stop in time. I also notice that the line for stopping is painted exactly at the stop light, so if you stop where its indicated you can?t see the traffic signal; this also causes delays and the frustrated overuse of the horn.

When parking in Romania, follow the majority and park on the sidewalk.  I see why this makes sense, since many of the roads are narrow and there aren?t many legal parking places. I don?t understand why Bucharest doesn?t have parking meters. The city could make a lot of money this way and use it to improve the roads! Just 5.000 lei an hour in parking meters would help. There are very few parking garages and some private parking lots that fill up very early in the morning. I have noted with irony, that in Bucharest you park and even drive on the sidewalk and you walk in the street (because you have to walk around the cars that are on the sidewalks)!

Conversely, cars don?t stop for pedestrians in American; pedestrians must wait until the traffic is clear to cross. It is a quaint idea to me to see cars stopping at every cross-walk (or zebras as they are called in Romanian) ? that is, usually the drivers stop. Maybe that is why Romanians drive so fast between each stop light ? to make up for all the time it takes to stop at every cross walk?