OK, today I decided to drive a car from home to the office. Not that I had no other option to get to the office, but I just wanted to try it out while I had a person with experience of driving here next to me. The other reason for getting to drive a car was that my leg is still fucked up and walking gives me some amount of pain, and getting from home to metro station is around 15 minutes walking at normal speed (which will make around 25 minutes for me in current condition).
Anyhow, first thing to note is a different car. While I am used to my Suzuki SX4, here I we have Mercedes B-Class. It is approximately same size and form-factor (bit longer and higher), but it feels completely different. First thing to notice is that it is diesel car with automatic transmission. There is a two second gap between the moment you push acceleration and the car actually starts accelerating. Second is the heavy sound of the engine. Third is the view from the drivers place: you can’t see much at all. Not talking about small side mirrors as I am used to bigger ones in my car, but they are generally bigger that normal size.
While that was about the car, driving is also weird. Driving on right side is one thing, but all those bikes, pedestrians and so on makes it a hard task to get to destination without killing someone. Especially this is dangerous when turning right, as bikes may be coming from back of the car to cross your way. I think that anyone on the road has more rights than a car, and it doesn’t matter if you drive while having green light and all the rest have red. The width of the driving lane is also quite low, compared to Cyprus. Traffic lights are confusing from the first look, but after some time you get an understanding that each lane may have it’s own signaling light.
I will definitely have more chance to enjoy local roads in the coming days, so I might get some more info, but this just a first impression from the short ride.