Driving

Driving in Romania is a bit of a risk. Most Romanians did not start driving until the fall of Communism. So that leaves us with a country of relatively young drivers. Add to the equation the plethora of farm animals, gypsy wagons, and poor construction projects fighting for road space- it all feels like a giant video game without a reset button.

On our journey down to Rosiori, we were held up by a truck stopped in the middle of the highway waiting to turn left. We were about the fifth car stopped waiting. Our van went from chatting about the country side to being jolted forward as the back window exploded- all in a moment. The car behind hadn't been paying attention and slammedinto out stopped van at full speed. We didn't hear the driver touch his brakes once.



As we staggered out of the van I immediately checked all of our passengers for injuries. A few had whiplash and slowly began 'walking it off' through the wheat fields on the side of the road. My mind quickly then travelled to load of instruments piled in the back of the van. We carefully broke out the remaining glass in the windshield and started to check all the horns. Amazingly everything had escaped damage. Looking back at the dilapidated Dacia that had smashed into us at highway speeds we were stunned to see the crumpled damage it had sustained.



One of the guys retrieved a bag of croissants from the middle of the road- our planned breakfast for the next morning but more importantly, the only real casualty of our cat accident.

We were delayed a few hours filing a police report and insurance claims but thankfully we were able to be back on the road with our van- sans back windshield!