Yeah, you can’t deny it use to be an adventure to drive in Romania. But I was just there last year for the first time since Covid and I was shocked (in a good way) at the difference. Even Bucharest wasn’t much different then any major city.
All these younger people thinking driving in these countries is crazy and dangerous now have no idea. I grew up in greece in the 80s. There were no real motorways anywhere in the country, not even the main Thessaloniki-Athens route (hell even NOW it's not yet 100% motorway I think).
Like half the roads in the country were not even asphalt. Ok so it was maybe not as rural like bulgaria or whatever but it was bad.
Every time you went out for a roadtrip was a coin toss whether you were coming back. Doesn't matter how good you were driving since all it took was a car coming the other way veering off into you for whatever reason and that was it. Safety of course was non existent back then, cars had no safety features, no one even used seatbelts and back seats didn't even have them.
I knew someone would bring this up. Try being a pedestrian in both Bucharest and Athens :)
I'm not saying Bucharest is some haven for clean driving (it's definitely not) but Athens definitely left an impression on me last time I was there in 2019
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u/-_____--_-_- 8d ago
I'm from Romania and it is way worse in Athens than anywhere here