It wasn't a good time to be driving

Dear ,

Last week I was on a bus and it was raining very heavily. The traffic was crazy - it was peak hour (when people are on their way to work) - and I felt sorry for the bus driver as he carefully drove us through the chaos.

That was the thing about the area of Tasmania I lived in as a teenager - the amount of rain there was. 

It was very wet. One of the wettest areas of Australia.

We had a lot of rain - most of the year.

And because we lived only a few kilometres from the sea, it was windy. Even on the hottest summer day, there was usually a light breeze (1). When we had bad weather, gale force winds (2) were not unusual. 

So, it was normal to go out and do what you needed to do, even when the weather was horrible.

That included travelling by car.

We grew up driving on wet roads, with our cars also being blown around by the wind. Sometimes it was hard work, looking through the rain hitting the windshield (3) while fighting to keep the car on the road because of the wind.

In Germany I haven't driven much - only the few months I lived in Koblenz. There, one of my colleagues warned me about driving in the rain. He said it's like other drivers don't know what to do and so they drive really slowly and carefully but somehow there are also heaps of traffic problems.

I was in Koblenz during summer and autumn and generally the weather was lovely. Then, one day, there was a lot of rain. 

My colleague was right.

On the way to a company, I was suddenly stuck in a traffic jam (4). We moved very slowly. The strange thing was, there was no reason for it - no accident or road works or anything! I couldn't understand it 🤔.

So it must have been very difficult for that bus driver the other morning, with heavy rain, wind and crazy motorists all around him.  

What do you think, ? Do German streets become crazy in bad weather? What are your experiences?

Stay safe!

Andrea

(1) breeze - a very gentle, soft wind

(2) gale force winds - very, very strong winds

(3) windshield (or windscreen) - the front window of a car, that the driver looks through