Traffic: What's the most outrageous behaviour you've seen?

[Hector]

Reading the good news on the Beeching thread got me thinking about pleasant train journeys as a youngster in Southport , and then about later even pleasanter long journeys between the North and London, when I'd occasionally share a carriage with old guys with whisky flasks, who were willing to share the contents in exchange for conversation.

Memories of travel overseas, however, are not so idyllic. One which I will never erase is that of ferryboat travel in Turkey.

As the boat approaches, the waiting passengers become nervous and fidgety. Then, when it is almost at the quay, women begin to scream and flay around them with handbags as they rush for the boat.They are lashing any in reach because these are leaping across the water onto the ferryboat.

What's the worst behaviour other posters have seen?

[gazaprop]

Waiting at Nice bus station for the bus to Monaco, myself and the current Mrs G were first in the line.
As the empty vehicle swung into the bay everyone barrelled past us towards the bus doors - two people had a toe hold on the step, gripping the rear view mirror, whilst the bus was still moving.
From being first we ended up standing all the way there. We had seats on the return journey, due mainly to us sharpening our elbows and being a little less well mannered.

In my experience good manners seem to end at Dover!

[Blackrock]

Driving around and through Cairo in the 80's when, on a so-called dual carriageway, we were constantly having to swerve to avoid donkey carts and motorcycles etc coming towards us on the wrong side. As for the traffic in the city centre - don't even go there !
Also had to be very careful in Malta many years ago where a local told me that drivers on country roads tend to stay on the side that is most shaded from the sun

[said]

Reading the good news on the Beeching thread got me thinking about pleasant train journeys as a youngster in Southport , and then about later even pleasanter long journeys between the North and London, when I'd occasionally share a carriage with old guys with whisky flasks, who were willing to share the contents in exchange for conversation.

Memories of travel overseas, however, are not so idyllic. One which I will never erase is that of ferryboat travel in Turkey.

As the boat approaches, the waiting passengers become nervous and fidgety. Then, when it is almost at the quay, women begin to scream and flay around them with handbags as they rush for the boat.They are lashing any in reach because these are leaping across the water onto the ferryboat.

What's the worst behaviour other posters have seen?

Last night, car travelling at around 130/140 mph over Birkdale Cop.

[Hector]

Driving around and through Cairo in the 80's when, on a so-called dual carriageway, we were constantly having to swerve to avoid donkey carts and motorcycles etc coming towards us on the wrong side. As for the traffic in the city centre - don't even go there !
Also had to be very careful in Malta many years ago where a local told me that drivers on country roads tend to stay on the side that is most shaded from the sun

Cairo is amazing as you say. I spent a week or so there with an American around 1990, and I remember the donkey carts in the middle of the vehicles which constantly broke down.

Our guide was the former captain of the national football team and he just drove his Mercedes in any direction he liked as the police beamed and shouted 'Kaptin!'

[Darkside]

Also had to be very careful in Malta many years ago where a local told me that drivers on country roads tend to stay on the side that is most shaded from the sun

A bit off-topic but I remember pulling into a car park at the Neolithic tombs on Malta and being greeted by a very elderly gentleman parking attendant (in a bus driver's hat so he looked official). I wound down the window expecting him to ask for payment for parking and he barked "Are you German?", to which I replied "No, we're English". He grinned a toothless grin at me, said "no charge!" and waved us in. The Maltese have very long memories.....

[bensherman]

We went to Palermo a few years ago. Italians are generally renowned for being adventurous drivers. Install them in Sicily and it all moves up a few notches.

We tried pedestrian crossing-at a crossing- a three-lane dual carriageway. A truly frightening experience, which included noticing that drivers had decided three lanes were not enough and created four.

Then a few months later we were in Vienna, walking down a street and paused to admire a building on the opposite side. When we realised the traffic had stopped, apparently because drivers had anticipated we might WANT to cross....

It pointed to the massive task the EU has in running together cultures as different as those.

[gsgsgs]

I've driven in New York, never to be repeated but that was a breeze compared to being on a mini bus in Nairobi, I have never been so frightened in a vehicle!

[joan ofarc]

Not traffic as such but it was on a bus... Just before last Christmas (ah, happy days) on a crowded bus going into Southport a young woman gets on with three young children, around five or six probably. When they get on they are already completely hyper, screaming some sort of song at the tops of their voices. They pass down the length of the bus and squeeze into a seat. Much hilarity and screaming ensues, although I had thought they couldn't get any louder. The woman, who I took to be the mother, made absolutley no attempt to calm them, or say something like 'Indoor voices, please'. People on the bus began tutting and eventually staring at them. That was obviously too subtle as nothing changed. Some brave soul eventually asked them to be quiet. No change. By the time I got off the woman next to me had turned off her hearing aid and the atmosphere was pretty tense.

[Hamble]

The Film Duel circa 1971.

After that everything else was just bad behaviour.