Driving In SA

I was really looking forward to driving in SA when I arrived here. I've never rented a car in another country before and the driving on the left side of the road made it sound more fun. Thrifty Rentals gave us a Renault Megane Scenic five-seater to drive for the first week.

It didn't take much to get used to the right hand drive and left hand shifting. My first drive took me from the airport to Pretoria by freeway and then out to Magaliesburg on a free flowing highway.

The convention on single lane highways is for slower traffic to move left onto the shoulder to allow faster traffic to pass. The passing cars blink their flashers a few times to acknowledge. Traffic moves smoothly, but I think there are fewer cars on the roads than in the states. Cars are still the primary, and in most cases only, mode of transport here, however.

Gasoline runs somewhere around $4 per gallon. There are attendants at every station who come running up as soon as you pull in. We've been asking them to check the oil and tires and we give them a couple dollars tip.

We drove the Renault out to Kruger. With three in the back it was a bit cramped, but it was a nice, smooth riding car. It suffered from some build quality issues, namely a few rattles and a boot lid that wouldn't latch shut, but I really liked it otherwise.

Neal was driving us back to our backpackers lodge in Sabie and he was clocked going 73kph in a 60kph zone. The police had set up a speed trap on a slope coming into the city just after the speed limit had dropped from 80 to 60. The cop motioned him to pull over and he did so, but everyone else in the car thought the cop was motioning him through and we told Neal to keep going. He drove a few more blocks and saw the flashing blue lights of a police car in the rear view.

The policeman pulled his car next to ours, scolded Neal for disobeying, and told him to follow his car back to the speed trap area. When we got there, he said to Neal, "Hello, license please." Neal, confused, replied, "I don't have a yellow license." Everyone in the car was laughing as Neal tried to figure out the cop's accent. One of us finally explained it to him and he handed over his MN driver's license.

The cop explained the citation and said there was a fine of R250 (about $33). Neal handed over the cash and asked for a copy of the ticket. Hilariously, the cop became uncomfortable and started waffling. First he dropped the fine to R150, handed Neal R100, and tried to shoo us away. Neal again asked for a copy of the ticket, as I was telling him he should take it home and frame it. The cop asked where we were from. When we told him we are from the US and were in SA for the world cup, he asked if we were players. Then he produced $63 and asked if we could change it for Rand. We told him we did not have enough to do that. He dropped the fine to R100 and handed back a R50 bill. Finally he let us go.

We got a flat tire on the way back to Am Hang lodge from Kruger on the 17th. About 30km from the lodge, another driver pulled alongside and gestured toward the right front tire. It was half flat, so we hobbled back to the lodge and Neal and Anthony installed the spare. The next day, we took the flat to the owner of Balule Bush Lodge down the road, who also owns a tire shop in Magaliesburg. He took it in and had it patched free of charge while we were off enjoying the USA-Slovenia match. We had spent a lot of money in the Balule bar, so this was a nice gesture. It worked out well when we took the car back to the rental agency too; I had only to leave a short note on the check sheet and there were no extra charges.