User:Heerenveen/Driving in Bucharest

Driving through this at 150km/h is what driving in Bucharest is all about!

You guys in the West over there have it so comfortable. Brilliantly paved roads. Efficient, hell, overzealous policing. Cars with more than a hundred and fifty horsepower. Hell, even without horses pulling them! Sure, you guys moan about carbon emissions and speed cameras, but I doubt if you tried your tricks in a land with no speed limits, no roads, and a ninety-nine percent fatality rate you'd come off much worse. The place's quirks allow our hardened, fifty-something baldies' driving qualities to shine much brighter than those of your pesky boy racers. The veritable warzone element of some of the traffic makes those with courage shine – your mere bankers wouldn't stand a chance here! As such, this makes driving in Bucharest the most invigorating, involving, indecent motor experience ever recorded.

In town

You know, back in your country – with your radar, your GPS, your remote control parking sensors – you know all those softies on the road? You know the type – soccer moms on the way to the mall, caffeine nuts driving about ten kilometers from the correct lane. Basically everyone on the road that you get red mist for with the greatest of frequencies. These people take away from the whole "driving spectacle", if you will, in your cosseted countries. In Bucharest, however, we do not have this problem. You are not allowed to drive on the streets of Bucharest, unless you know how to swear in Romanian. The proficiency in swearing is usually measured in the time you can keep swearing without repeating yourself. This keeps all of the soft people who see cars as transportation off the roads and in the mental hospitals, leaving the roads free for burning petrolheads such as ourselves!

Now that we have all of the idiots who couldn't get pleasure from a drive if it bit them in the monocle off of the road, you'll find that Bucharest's towns are a playground of happiness, vengeance, and destruction! Blasting round corners at 140km/h, crashing into whatever you want (shockingly, never getting injured; it's like a video game!), drag racing the newbie who thinks he's so hot in his new Zonda... fun times. Much better than sitting back in those queues in Democracistan, wondering why the accountant in the Smart car (who calls their car Smart, really?) won't go through that massive shortcut, preferring to sit back and relax at the amber traffic lights, isn't it?

Sweet sweeping roads

You sure you're good enough, Western chump?

It's frustrating over there, isn't it? You get to a lovely road, it's a lovely day, you're in a terrific car. You decide to give it some and enjoy the ride... but wait! What's that! Only a veritable army of speed cameras, ready to nail you for going at $30.{\dot {0}}1$ miles an hour (you're still on imperial, too. What kind of forward thinking country uses imperial? None, that's what). Endlessly frustrating for even the most controllable speed king. In Bucharest, however, we have this problem not. After several proposals and rejections, mobs and torchings, as well as bribings and lynchings, we finally managed to get rid of all speed restrictions on our best roads, allowing those up to it to finally enjoy the racing atmosphere, and those not up to it to die in a fiery furnace of fucking finality.

Mountain paths

You lot over there don't know much about mountains, do you? What with all that development, soon the only thing that'll be classified as a mountain will be those gargantuan land fills of yours! You certainly filled the holes in the land a long time ago with them. Here in Bucharest, we have many, many hills and slopes, with great roads, and great exhilaration. They even go as high as five thousand feet – if you crash, we won't be seeing you in once piece, that's for sure! Maybe a thousand? Nah, more than that, for sure. You want to find out yourself?

This is what makes our mountain roads so great though. The danger. Those not worthy will fall by the wayside, to be ruthlessly forgotten, while our best will enjoy the freedom of the road that this shall give! Not that our other roads aren't already brilliant (they are. Yes, they are. Really.). Don't walk off! Seriously, try it one time. Assuming you don't die a painful, slow, horrible death, you will forget all that time waiting for those damn red lights, and have the drive of your life... so far.

Regulations

Forget all of those impressive advances though. Even if Bucharest had the roads of Zimbabwe, the cars of 1000AD and the humanoids of four and a half million years ago, the experience would still be measured in powers of your jammed First World views. Why?

Because it would still be Romanian, and as every crackpot knows, everything Romanian is boundless, straightless and lawless, and driving is no exception. No rules are present whatsoever. Traffic fights for every inch of the road, on both sides. Nobody cares if there's a flaming wreck in the middle of the road – heck, it's thought to be a sign of power to survive a crash. There are no traffic lights; people coming in from side roads have two choices: wait until there is a gap, or take your chances with that big Jeep Grand Cherokee coming towards them at Mach 0.005...

Disputes

It may be surprising that in a country where baseball is not played at all, the sales of baseball bats are rather high. A study showed that 91.5% of the drivers in Bucharest keep a baseball bat under their chair. What the study missed out is that the rest of 8.5% of the drivers keep it in the trunk. Using a baseball bat is a popular and fun way to settle disputes. It is recommended you smash the windscreen with the baseball bat and scratch the side of the car with your keys. After that is done, we think a bit of exercise would do good for you, so start running after the other driver. Watch out for the other driver's car spontaneously combusting however – lots of people hide tiny atom bombs under their wherrls to punish those who do not follow the customs of liking driving in Bucharest