Africa

nev

Super Térrarist
I noticed in Indonesia (where you drive on the left) that if you are in a queue of traffic trying to overtake, the cars in front will indicate left meaning "safe to overtake me". Indicating right means "don't overtake, oncoming traffic".

In india, a sharp toot of the horn advises a truck driver that you're going to overtake him, then you keep a keen eye out on his driver side window and he will stick his hand out either waving it subtly forwards, advising that it is safe to overtake, or waving it downwards, indicating not safe to overtake. After the overtake manouevre you give 2 toots of the horn to say thanks.
 

moike

Old Fahrt
More observations from South Africa.
It's not just the trucks that pull over to let you past. Tootling down the highway this morning to get to some tasty dirt sections (yes, it's me...) We were sitting on 120 in a 100 zone, when we came up behind a police car. He promptly pulled into the emergency lane and waved us past. Try that on the Great Alpine Road....

Over here they have an interesting variation in stop signs - there are sometimes stop signs facing all ways into the intersection. At these, everyone stops, and they proceed in the order in which they arrived. In practice, you stop and give way to anyone already waiting. It works smoothly because everyone cooperates.
 
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moike

Old Fahrt
I mentioned a dirt ride.

Today six of us tackled the seven passes route and the Montagu Pass. If ever you get within striking distance with a suitable bike, just do it. Lots of tight gravel and some tasty bitumen.

One of our number is an experienced motorcycle rider trainer, and with a little advice from him I was comfortable standing up and negotiating a winding gravel road at speeds around 80k/h.
View attachment 826
 
Over here they have an interesting variation in stop signs - there are sometimes stop signs facing all ways into the intersection. At these, everyone stops, and they proceed in the order in which they arrived. In practice, you stop and give way to anyone already waiting. It works smoothly because everyone cooperates.

I've seen that system in the USA.
 

nev

Super Térrarist
I've seen that system in the USA.

Yeah, it's a bit confusing when you ride up to your first 4 way stop without actually knowing how they work. In the past few years they have discovered this newfangled invention called "the roundabout" (on our first US trip in 2010 there were new roundabouts in Virginia which had large signs preceeding them with instructions on how roundabouts worked).

They did a 4-way-stop vs roundabout comparison on Mythbusters TV show and their experiment showed that 20% more cars were able to get through a roundabout vs 4-way stop in the same timeframe.
 

John_Johnny

Long Timer
Great pics Moike, but being on the road and only a phone for internet, I reckon you need to organize the Africa Debrief to regale us with your tales of adventure. Now where could we have it???? Hmmm. I know, your place! Pizza oven. :whistle:
 

moike

Old Fahrt
Sounds like a plan.
Over been writing up a ride report, to post when I can add photos from the camera. It's a bit of a pain resizing photos on the phone, uploading and attaching them. I'll post a proper report when were back.
 

John_Johnny

Long Timer
Do they still have 35mm slides? Wouldn't that be fun. A slide night at Moike's.
Ahhhh, the good old days. It took all night to get through one box of slides because every story would lead to another story.
 
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