road-worthy

I never learned how to drive before coming to Canada, but I'd been a passenger on an almost daily basis for nearly 12 years back home. And although it made for extremely high stress levels sometimes, the system was mostly simple: if you can do it without getting hit or hitting anyone (and even here there is some degree of tolerance!) go for it. This was especially true in Davao before, where there weren't really many traffic lights till just recently, and an abundance of motorcycles made for a lot of trigger-happy shifting and cutting off. Many a near-miss in Quezon City also proved this point quite well.

When I first started attending driving school just this past March, it was all theory at first. They have this novel concept - at least it was novel to me at that time - of right-of-way. If I recall correctly, it goes something like this:

• If you're going straight with no stop signs / red lights against you, generally the road is all yours. People backing out of driveways or turning into your lane may only do so if you deem them worthy of your courtesy. Both are great, but too much or ill-timed courtesy may incur the wrath of the driver behind you; extend your graces sparingly.
• If you're turning right, basically anybody turning left into your lane has to wait, you have right-of-way. You also have the added advantage of being able to turn at a red light, provided you don't collide into anyone already going straight (and if you do, and it goes to court, you lose, always.) Optional courtesy: be kind to those trying to turn left into your lane if they are faced with a yellow-about-to-turn-red light; they may well soon be stuck in the middle of the intersection, and you shouldn't wish that on anyone.
• If you're turning left, red lights will stop you, anyone else coming straight against you will stop you...there's not much right-of-way to speak of, you are at the mercy of everybody else except...
• If you're facing a yield sign. You have no rights. Seriously, you can only go if everyone else has cleared out. And from what I've noticed nobody really seems interested in ever deliberately giving you a break if you're in this situation, which is doubly sad.

Then there's the four-way-stop, that all-too-familiar octagonal red STOP sign with the little disclaimer printed underneath: "all-way" or "4-way." As a rule, whenever vehicles get to an intersection one after another, it's first-come-first-go. If more than one car gets there at a time, whoever is "to-the-right" (whatever on Earth that is supposed to mean) gets to go first. These stop signs are especially funny - or irritating - if you're all alone in a residential area - you look around and ask, 'what am I stopping for?' If there's a long line of you going one way and no one else coming from all three directions for miles, it still doesn't matter: stop-and-go. Stop-and-go. Stop-and-go.

It took me quite a while to get the hang of all the other, little rules. Some of them they don't teach you in school, and others they do teach but you don't really understand the point or care about them until you actually find yourself in those situations on the road.

• You don't get to cut-off crossing pedestrians. Actually, you don't even get to turn into their path until they're 3/4 of the way to the other side. And they're never, ever, ever in a hurry either.
• You always yield to the bus. And in anything, if it ever comes down to You vs. Bus, the bus always wins.
• The far-left and (sometimes) far-right lanes have left- and right-arrows painted on them. These aren't suggestions; they're requirements. So if you're going straight on that lane, and a turn comes up, if you weren't planning on turning then...well, you are now.
• This nearly killed me the first time I drove home after picking up my car: on bigger streets, be especially wary of the far-right lane - it might exit into the freeway, and if you're not qualified (or, are qualified but scared to death of the freeway) you're screwed. It doesn't help that when the sign "RIGHT LANE EXITS" comes up, you usually have five seconds or less to get out of that lane before the telltale Curve-of-Doom / Point-of-No-Return comes into sight.

All in all, I think I'm slowly getting the hang of driving here. And although sometimes I find them amusing, I really do appreciate all these rules (written and unwritten) that make it safer. It's a lot easier to drive if you have peace of mind. Just don't stick me on the freeway - I'm still working on that.