Driving in the Netherlands

After loads of business meetings for three days, it was time to pick up Dennis at the airport. He was scheduled to arrive on Friday morning at 10:30 AM. So, I rode in the taxi to the airport with my boss and RP who were heading home. In order to get ready for renting a car, I had been sitting in the front seat for all the taxi rides. That really helped me to feel more confident that the basic rules of the road are very similar to home. I was glad to find that renting a car was much the same as well. I found Dennis and we hopped in the itty-bitty rental car.

A note on cars in the Netherlands - apparently, they are all stick shift. Yes, I'm one of those helpless women who can't drive stick shift. I have to explain that I was going to learn on my husband's pick-up truck, but it turned out that couldn't reach the gas pedal. I'm also one of those vertically challenged people. So, I never learned to shift and in the US it never seemed to be a problem. But to get an automatic rental car in Netherlands costs 158 euros per day! Yes, it's outrageous. But I honestly don't know how much a regular car would have cost, so maybe it's just always outrageous.

I also got the Never-Lost GPS system. For those of you who have not used this new-fangled gadget, let me tell you how awesome they are. I drove while my husband sat in the passenger seat and watched the Never-Lost. For 4 days of driving in a foreign country, we did not fight once! At home, a drive to the grocery store can generate a full day of fighting. This gadget not only knows where you are, it also knows where you are going, how to get there, and what lane you need to be in. And it tells you in English. Now, if only I could get it tell me what the speed limit is...

The Netherlands uses a consistent way of determining the speed limit. If you're in town, it's 30 kph, residential areas are 50 kph, and out of town is 80kph. That's great except that I can't tell the difference. Most of the towns just seem to run together and all the roads are small. I was also trying not to get caught in their photo speed traps. As a result, plenty of people were honking at me to hurry-up!

Parking is also a frightening prospect. First, being functionally illiterate makes it hard to know what the parking rules are. The real estate agent explained some of it to us. If there's a sign showing a coin going into a box, that means you have to pay the meter. The meter is in a central location. You pay the money and it prints a receipt that you leave on the dashboard of your car. Like all meters, you have to read the details in the fine print at the bottom. It's in Dutch so you won't understand it at all. So, we avoid these meters. The next thing to watch for is the blue paint on the parking spots. That means 2-hour parking. But, you have to have a little blue card with a number wheel on it to leave in your car. You set the wheel to the current time, which is the start of your 2-hours, and then leave the card on the dashboard for the police to see. The blue cards are sold at gas stations and hardware stores for only a couple dollars, but we don't have one. So we have to watch for the thin line of blue paint that's flaking off the pavement under the car and avoid these, too. We did manage to find some free parking as long as we were willing to walk a few blocks.

Finally, bikes bikes bikes, always watch for bikes. Bikes have the right-of-way. If you hit a bike, you are wrong, even if it's midnight, the biker is drunk, has no lights, and is going the wrong way on a one way street. I can't wait to bike here! But there are so many bikes, you really have to watch for them at every intersection.

Despite the parking and speed limit issues, I was glad I rented a car. I needed know that I can drive in my new home. Many people have asked what side of the road they drive on in NL. They do drive on the right side, just like us. The roads are a lot narrower and there are kamikaze bikers, but it's still just driving. I just need to learn stick shift - anyone have a car I can borrow?