Don’t you just love the feel of an open road, wind in your hair, music playing and the promise of a destination ahead? If you do, driving in Belgium may not be the best option for you and I’m not just talking about the weather.

Here are five hard-earned lessons that I discovered about driving in Belgium:

1. The dreaded priorite a droit means that you should give way to anyone approaching from the right. This means that if you are on a major thoroughfare and someone is chugging his way on a country lane and is about to join your route he has the right of way if he’s approaching from the right. You’ll need an overly sensitive right foot until you get used to this.
2. The important thing to note about traffic lights is that if you manage to overstep the line before they turn red, then you’re clear. This is mainly because of the cameras perched on top of the lights that cannot catch your number plate if you’ve moved beyond a certain point. It also explains the large amounts of gridlock in city centres.
3. Make sure that you know how your destination is spelt in both French and Dutch. Due to the language problems that they have, you may think that you haven’t seen a sign yet when in actual fact there would have been plenty, just in another language.
4. The general rule on the motorways is that you should not hog the fast lane. Judging by the reactions I get, you should not hog the slow lane either. The middle lane can annoy people so perhaps the best thing to do is just move from one lane to another as often as you can.
5. Belgian drivers assume that a car’s bumpers are meant to show when you’ve hit the car in front of you whilst parking. If you care for your wheels, I’d find a garage for them if I were you.

I would also recommend a colourful vocabulary as it can be handy from time to time.

This page was originally published in March 2011.