When it came to driving in Europe, I got a bad education in the Three R’s.

Whoever came up with the Three R’s to mean reading, writing, and arithmetic must spell about as good as I do.

 

I have driven enough in Europe to know that the Three R’s can mean something entirely different, like Roundabouts, Right Turns, and Recalculating.

 

Roundabouts are those intersections—particularly popular outside the U.S.—where in an attempt to save money by not having to buy traffic signal lights, while allowing NASCAR wannabes to practice making lots of left turns, the road department constructs these circles where you drive around and around, sometimes seemingly stuck in a never-ending loop, as you pass an infinite choice of right turns.

 

Well, they are not really infinite, it just seems that way, particularly if either you can’t decide which is the correct road to take—or if you get pinned in an interior concentric lane and no one will let you out. 

 

 

             

 

I cannot imagine how many unfamiliar drivers actually run out of gas in these situations.

 

(Before thousands of alert readers leave comments to point out that—like water going down the drain south of the equator—I realize that the traffic flow is reversed in some countries. I am not at all sure that makes it the least bit easier to navigate.)

 

While a recent article in Newsweek claimed that the roundabouts provide the motoring public with greater safety, as I

previously documented, my experiences might have proved to the contrary.

 

For instance, I found it quite painful, as my wife would deliver a series of dope slaps as we navigated the numerous roundabouts while we toured northern Spain.

 

Not that the corporal punishment wasn’t at least a little deserved.

 

I had the sole task of holding the steering wheel in a locked, left turn maneuver, while I calmly—and by calmly, I mean probably not so much—urgently ask my wife, “Do I turn here? Do I here here? Do I turn here?” as we circled the roundabout and passed roads going off in various directions.

 

I expected my wife to juggle an unfolded road map while attempting to make out road signs written in Spanish, and sometimes Basque, and at the same time trying to interpret the small screen on our Garmin Nuvi GPS, with its tauntingly, pretentious female voice, saying over and over and over, “recalculating…recalculating…recalculating.”

 

            

 

I seem to recall one time when my wife had just about enough of my “calm” requests for directions as to which right turn to take, all the while Miss Helpful, our electronic companion, continued to provide updates as to correcting our clearly stupid navigation errors.

 

Finally, my wife tightly wadded up the road map into a dense, rock-hard ball, and proceed to do her best Tim Lincecum imitation by throwing a mean fastball directly at my head, while asserting,

“ENOUGH WITH THE EFFING RECALCULATION…PICK A ROAD…ANY ROAD…MAKE A RIGHT TURN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THIS CIRCLE!”

 

Maybe, like the old Bill Cosby routine about neighbors placing stop signs at the top of hills in San Francisco, these roundabouts were installed for the entertainment of nearby residents.

 

I know that my wife sure thinks they are funny.

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