Estonian Drivers

Sometimes people ask if I drive in Estonia. Apart from the fact that I would have to drive on the right hand side, the main reason I don't is that Estonians are maniacs behind the wheel. Almost daily there is a head on collision on one of Estonia's roads. The picture here is from today, a head on which happened on the road between Tallinn and Tartu. No one died in this accident, though there are numerous fatalities every week, which is pretty poor for such a small country.

Tallinn and Tartu Estonia's two biggest towns, and there is lots of traffic, however it is unseparated single carriage-way for most of the trip. In summer especially when people are getting out of town for the holidays, drivers make suicide overtake maneuvers, and it is pretty common to see a car driving straight at you at 130km/ph only to pull back to their own side of the road with seconds to spare. Once while on a buss to Viljandi one car overtaking actually passed us on our right (i.e. on the hard shoulder of the wrong side of the road!!)

I will drive here eventually, but i don't have a car at the moment, so really I don't have to worry too much about the madness on Estonian roads just yet.