Sorry Hergé, sorry Kim Clijsters, sorry Hercule Poirot and, particularly, sorry Jacky Ickx. Your affable, likeable homeland retains, surely, the qualities required to make it the least joyful country in Europe through which to drive.
I say this not because of my Jaguar to Jabbeke feature, which was a pleasure to create last month, but a trip to Germany last week to drive a Hyundai i30 N. From England to France, into Belgium and misery.
You know when the average-speed-checked bits of British motorways under construction are particularly busy? All of Belgium is like that.
Being a relatively densely populous country of nice, law-abiding people, Belgium’s 120kph highway limit is pretty widely respected. Which means almost everybody is driving between 118kph and 122kph. At the same time. So while there are overtakes, some last for months.
And then, once they have passed, as if realising the 123kph that they've inadvertently hit to finally get the job done is a bit much, a driver will pull back into the lane they overtook and, as if completely exhausted by the effort, ease off to perhaps 118kph. The one, two or more cars behind, now being slowed, will then themselves pull out, and so the whole interminable process begins again.
This all happens with closing distances so tight that if somebody were driving that near to your rear bumper in the UK, they would be fuming, either because you’re holding them up or they’re trying to prevent somebody else filling the gap.
Not so in Belgium. When you look at drivers’ expressions, there’s no anger. Not even passive aggression. They’re just bored out of their tree.
This is definitely the worst country in Europe to drive through, I decided. Until I got back to England again. Ah, yes. Sorry, Hergé et al. I remember. Here it’s worse.
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Yeah,
but they've got also got Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, so all is forgiven.
Give me Belgium any day by comparison.
LOL spot the bloke from Belgium.....
Densely populated with nice law-abiding people
Our British roads have a lot of people driving around with no insurance or even licences, others with cloned number plates so are immune from all forms of automated road policing (so you have very fast undertaking and cutting around on places like the M25 with average speed cameras) and some indulging in road rage as a regular pastime. That's whilst the rest of us sit at the average speed camera speed or observe our speedos more than the road ahead (some of our speed limits are also ridiculous) for paranoia of being caught by legions of mobile speed traps.
So motoring on our British roads is just as boring as Belgium, but we have the added bonus of a potentially nasty accident with the nutters who are beyond automated law enforcement that nothing is being done about.
Give me Belgium any day by comparison.