Riding the moronic road

Practicing waking up early in preparation for my upcoming second-go-round of the driver's exam, which is scheduled early in the morning later this week. I'm nervous, but it's not as bad as last time - different rather - thinking that I'd be a real asshole if I failed twice, rather than thinking it's going to be very hard to pass. I feel a great deal more ready than last time, and honestly think I'm better than most of the other drivers circulating around Belgium, which sadly is saying very little (and is far from a guarantee that I'll pass the exam, as they tightened up their giveaway policies a lot over the last 20 years). For example, I don't box intersections and if there's a t-junction immediately preceding an intersection I brake a little earlier so I don't block that either. As far as I can tell about 1 in 3 Bruxellois drivers are intellectually capable of such a feat. They are real shitheads on the road - oblivious motherfuckers - and haven't really kept up with the changes in their own driving laws.

Pedestrian crossings are the most obvious example to visitors and new arrivals, most visitors and new arrivals being obliged to cross streets quite early on in the process. It's only been within the last ten years that the rules have been changed and that drivers are obliged to stop when people are using them, and of course they don't. Why would they? There are no fucking consequences if they fail to stop. There are no traffic cops hanging around with cameras. They can even buzz a crossing whilst talking on a cellphone and kill a fucking pensioner without any jailtime or even substantial loss-of-license time. And judging from some of the really fuckwitted behaviour I've seen and heard of here, either many drivers are utterly unaware of the change in the law, or else become such self-involved sociopaths when they get behind the wheel that it loses all meaning.

Three examples:

1. Some asshole in an Audi cuts me off on the way to work. In my classy North American way, I flip him a bird. The cunt stops mid-intersection, blocking traffic of course, and starts to get out of his car. I'm far more bark than bite but I'm sick of nearly getting killed by these troglodytes, so I start walking over, determined to get in some beats even if it means getting the shit kicked out of me. Either the asshole in the Audi notices that I'm a girl, or that I'm spoiling for a fight, or that the early morning rush-hour traffic has been blocked by his stopping the middle of a busy intersection and everybody is honking at him; he closes the door and speeds off.

2. Next to the Porte de Hal, which cars go about quite fast despite a liberal sprinkling of pedestrian crossings, we saw some fat old red-faced fuck in an expensive grey convertible - I believe it was also an Audi, they're beautiful cars but they get driven by goddamn incompetents - slam on the brakes and narrowly avoid hitting a skinny little teenage boy who was halfway across the road. Embolism gets out of his paused car, blocking traffic of course, and walks up with his dicky chest out to have it out with the kid, ignoring the horns behind him and shouted abuse from the many pedestrians all around, who'd been freaked out by nearly seeing a minor's guts splattered all over the cobblestones. The big fat cunt takes a swing at the boy for daring to get in his way and lands two or three; as we go over to intervene, the boy cleverly retaliates by repeatedly kicking the front of the Audi. The man realizes he has rather more to lose in this situation, gets back in his car, and speeds off.

3. A friend of ours, another Canadian, who lives here with his family was partway across a crosswalk when another cunt - he doesn't remember if it was in an Audi or not - cuts him off. He's a temperate man but as he was holding his infant daughter in his right arm at the time, he angrily shook his left fist in the air as the car sped away. The goddamn jackass reverses, blocks the intersection (of course - it's just not an incident unless you're getting in everyone's fucking way), gets out of his car despite the imprecations of the woman sitting in the passenger seat, walks over to our friend, and punches him in the face - swinging over the head of the baby girl. Once more - and this was the same in all three examples - he pulls this shit in a very crowded location absolutely stuffed with onlookers, and in this case, according to our friend, about 20 people immediately descended from the nearby cafe and sidewalks, shouting at the asshole and explaining what sort of human being he was for taking a swing at a guy holding a baby over the head of the baby. Punchy mainly looks baffled.

I know that every nationality drives stupidly in its own way, though I don't really know it on a practical, experiential level about any other country like I do about this one. I've heard the French are congenitally incapable of signalling a turn or a lane change, for example, and Italians have the supremest disregard for the lives and limbs of cyclists that I've ever witnessed. But Belgians - honestly, the way they drive makes me hate their fucking guts. It makes me think all of the stupid Belgian jokes I've ever heard are soundly based in fact. I know they don't enjoy their Newfie-of-Europe stereotype, but when they get behind the wheel, they're not fighting it too hard.