Friday, August 04, 2006

traffic culture in Estonia

There's actually no culture in traffic, it is just the ego in the streets, transfigured from no brain to speedy new shiny cars. If you are a foreigner driving around in the streets of Tallinn, you will be surprised how agressive it is.

The situation of the traffic police in Estonia is nothing but good today, which means that people think like that when there are no police watching us, we can be arrogant in traffic, can't we.

I believe it is not a matter of police force, but a matter of brain capacity. But the picture is like that there are teenagers with BMW-s, with the attitude that no one can punish us, so we can be arrogant.

I'm lucky not to be in a rush hour today twice a day every day, but I was, so I can tell. There's no such think like economy driving in the streets of Tallinn here, also if you try to keep the safe distance in the traffic, you can be sure that someone passes you using bus stop boxes, and will occupy the place that first was your "safe distance". So you can keep the safe distance, but consider to have many cars in a minute who think that this room is for them to dash there.

Also, if you drive with the maximum speed allowed +10, you are a snail in the traffic. And finally, we can't even park politely, the better (the more expensive) the car, the less we care about how we behave in the traffic or where we park.

Estonian media has been investigating about the reasons why the situation is like that. There's still room for additional cars (compared with the traffic of the US, for example), and when you are in your car, it is easy to forget the others. It is a phenomenon that for example drivers/cars from Finland are very polite drivers. They never rush in the traffic, nor they are inpolite. So is it a matter of that we re-established our independency 15 years ago, while our naighbours have had freedom times more?..

Also, when you see someone parking arrogantly, feel free to send the picture about it here:
http://wrongparking.blogspot.com/

2 comments:

Juhan said...

omg....sellise asja kohta ka blog olemas...

bright said...

jep. Ju on siis asi nii nugade peale läinud :)