Roads and movement

A few more insights into the culture I’m exploring here. Feel free to direct my musings from the virtual armchair of the comments, but reports are coming in that the commenting here isn’t working well. I have created a Facebook app so so that comments made on Facebook appear here. Would be glad if someone would test that theory….

Driving. It’s a well-known fact that all men like talking about driving, and all men secretly think they can do it really well. I’m no exception. So let’s talk about driving for a bit. The Cariocas are definitely good drivers – if they weren’t you would walk past a recent accident on every street corner. But they are undisciplined. Even bus drivers ignore red lights and drive so fast that the bus leans (“rolls”, Andy) dramatically, even on gentle bends. They have a manual gearbox and resolutely stick to third (“best gear”, eh, David?). If there is a party crowd on the bus, everyone shouts and cheers, encouraging the driver to go faster. The buses stop a lot more abruptly than I’m used to, and for reasons I’m not used to, either. Like trying to miss the corner of a lorry that has pulled across with an idle thumb indication from the driver. All the cars are equipped with indicators but rarely are they used at useful times. Crossing the road is normally the better safety decision – the alternative is badly-lit subways where muggings are more common in the evenings. The thing that makes it interesting is that these roads have four lanes in each direction and no barriers ( just high curbs and trees). The drivers do not slow down, so you must play real-life frogger and learn to read the pattern of cars coming up to spot a crossing opportunity. If you like the person you’re crossing with, you might on occasion grab them by the wrist and either pull them out of, or into the road with you. I haven’t yet deduced the policy for dealing with the fallen, but I have no doubt that anyone on the ground would be hit within seconds, probably by a yellow Opal Meriva – the taxi vehicle of choice in these parts.

Road planning is just as exciting. In order to avoid a set of traffic lights at a complex sliproad/intersection combination (which might, heaven forbid, slow everyone down), the authorities do not hesitate to add an entire road where drivers stay to the left although they’d popped out of the Chunnel on the limey side. They do put up a non-standard design of sign explaining this, and I will admit that it saves tarmac footprint in the built up area in Botafogo, but if you happen to miss this sign or don’t have time to read it, your life immediately gets very strange indeed.

Road crossing deserves more analysis here. There are two kinds of crosser – those who slavishly wait at crossings for the green man, and those who cross like Londoners. Both techniques are used at the same crossing at the same time. Initially I took responsibility for my own safety and crossed as I would in London: plan ahead and walk across, and turn that walk into a jog when necessary. But that takes a lot of mental effort when the crossing is before an intersection where cars may be changing lane and speed quite erratically. It is even exhausting to save those few seconds or minutes when the road is relatively “normal”. So now I stand with the others more often than not, not bothering my heat-addled mind with more planning and analysis. When the green man chooses to arrive, I make my move. Then I feel like a Carioca.

Everything purposeful here goes more slowly. Everything. The ultramodern tube trains eshew the potential possible efficiency gains of running more services, and instead stand idle and announcement-free for minutes at a time at each stop. Actually, there are no announcements of any sort on the network – bus or tube. I quite like it: on the Tube, someone or something is always barking at you. In Rio, you take your time, running for nothing (except safety in certain situations I’ve not yet encountered?) unless you’re running for running’s sake of course. And physical exercise? It is part of the culture here. If you’re just about wealthy enough not to have to work continuously selling biscuits and acai on the beach, then you’ll dedicate at least some of your time to running or making use of the exercise stations around the promenade. They look like bus stops, but are more like multigyms with no moving parts, all in brushed steel. The muscular Cariocas do pull-ups and sit-ups in the glaring sun, taking turns with their friends.

More later on an amazing Samba experience I had last night. Off for a shower and into town now.