Driving in Vilnius

It will be difficult to describe what driving is like here in just a few words. It really needs the support of personal experiences. These experiences only take one time on the road to gain. The first image is a crosswalk. You can see that it is clearly marked by both the lines on the pavement and the road sign on the post. As in many places, pedestrians have the right of way and all traffic is supposed to stop if anyone is in the crosswalk. This has not necessarily what we have experienced. It is more like, if a person in the crosswalk is not directly in front of you and you can get through the cross walk without hitting him then why not? Most of the crosswalks here are just the usual white stripes on the pavement but some are red and white like the one shown. These are indications that a pedestrian was killed in this crosswalk. I have not yet decided if the red is supposed to draw attention to this crosswalk for the drivers or the walkers. (Hmmmmm?) The second is a picture of just one of many streets. I took this in an effort to show how congested it can be even when traffic is light. You are looking at a two way street!!! It is obvious to even the most casual observer that there is not room enough here for two cars to bypass each other. Oh what to do? You play a game of chicken combined with leap frog. Basically, you charge ahead as far as you dare. In some cases the oncoming car will find a street, driveway,or empty parking place to pull over in. In others, you will climb the curb and park on the sidewalk until he passes. This sounds very polite and giving but it is not. It is much more like every man for himself. I have been at a stop sign turning left onto a two lane street and had a car on each side of me also turning left. This is because this particular intersection is flared to provide space for right turns. If a Lithuanian driver sees a space or a chance to go by you he will. Hence three cars all trying to turn left onto the same lane at the same time. I have other stories that are much worse but I only wanted to give you a flavor of what it is like to drive here.

INTERESTING FACTOID: There are more cell phone contracts here than there are people. Some folks have more than one phone but more often it is teens with several SIM cards. As services offer different rates if you call someone with the same service, they carry cards for the services of all their friends etc. and just use the one that gives them the best rate depending on who they are calling.