This is another example of "Are you OK Clarissa?" syndrome - the visitation of disaster on the extremely dumb or reckless. Ever since the Russian insurance industry required the installation of vehicle dash cams to counter the profusion of fraudulent claims, there has been a thriving market for Russian and former Eastern Bloc car crash videos, which are all over Youtube. The great majority of these feature people who would not be allowed behind the wheel in any sensibly run country and give a fascinating glimpse into a world that is very different from our own. I suspect your tailgater would have no difficulty getting employment as a Russian driving instructor.
I've never driven in Russia - thank God. Or India. But if anyone would like to experience true terror on the road inside the EU, I can thoroughly recommend Portugal. There was one taxi ride in Lisbon and another along the mist-shrouded coast road from Lisbon to Estoril late at night the memories of which still bring me out in sweats. Our English host explained that all the drivers were blocked out of their skulls on valium, because driving there is so horribly stressful. One Portuguese told me that his race were phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon until they got behind the wheel of a car, when they promptly turned into raging Latins. True dat. (Oh, yes - there was also the night-time journey along the coast road being driven VERY SLOWLY by a drunk man who, his friend in the back seat informed me, had started a course of powerful antidepressants that very day, which was why he kept nodding off at the wheel: that was fun.)
This is another example of "Are you OK Clarissa?" syndrome - the visitation of disaster on the extremely dumb or reckless. Ever since the Russian insurance industry required the installation of vehicle dash cams to counter the profusion of fraudulent claims, there has been a thriving market for Russian and former Eastern Bloc car crash videos, which are all over Youtube. The great majority of these feature people who would not be allowed behind the wheel in any sensibly run country and give a fascinating glimpse into a world that is very different from our own. I suspect your tailgater would have no difficulty getting employment as a Russian driving instructor.
ReplyDeleteI've never driven in Russia - thank God. Or India. But if anyone would like to experience true terror on the road inside the EU, I can thoroughly recommend Portugal. There was one taxi ride in Lisbon and another along the mist-shrouded coast road from Lisbon to Estoril late at night the memories of which still bring me out in sweats. Our English host explained that all the drivers were blocked out of their skulls on valium, because driving there is so horribly stressful. One Portuguese told me that his race were phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon until they got behind the wheel of a car, when they promptly turned into raging Latins. True dat. (Oh, yes - there was also the night-time journey along the coast road being driven VERY SLOWLY by a drunk man who, his friend in the back seat informed me, had started a course of powerful antidepressants that very day, which was why he kept nodding off at the wheel: that was fun.)
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