Making the World a Safer Place?

Recently, the Czech Republic established some new traffic laws as well as instituted a points system for offenses. We have yet to discover how the points are applied to foreign drivers, but my hunch (given the record of a certain male driver in the Verbrugge household) is that we will find out soon enough. Apparently, the Czech Republic has a very high fatal accident rate and they are trying to lower the incidences of accidents with new laws and stricter speed limit enforcement.

So, as of Thursday last week, some new road signs suddenly appeared at the entrance/exit to our neighborhood.

The first sign specifies that as we exit our neighborhood, we must turn right. The problem? The nearest town with a little market, video rental, coffee shop, etc. is to the left. If we turn right out of our neighborhood, we have no option but to make a u-turn in the road in order to get to town.


The second sign appears on the main road outside our neighborhood. It specifies that we are not allowed to make a left turn into our neighborhood. Apparently, we must continue up the road, and once again make a u-turn so that we can turn RIGHT into our neighborhood.


After much discussion, Brandon and I have determined the Czech authorities' reasoning behind these new signs: If they can make it so difficult for us to leave from and return to our neighborhood, we will just say "forget it" and stay home. Therefore, the number of drivers on the road will decrease and the fatality rate will instantly fall.

OR maybe they have something against left turns in general. The local chapter of the LTU (Left-Turn-Makers Union) should hire a lawyer and do something about that! Oops, there's my American mindset resurfacing again. Does the Czech Republic even have unions OR lawyers?!?

As for now, we will continue to test fate, turning left AND right, willy-nilly, as we wish. Stay tuned for the report of our first moving violation!