Robyn's Wanderings

A Barbadian Traffic Lesson!

His black Vitara Jeep came inches from my legs! My legs were, of course, trapped inside a car door,but with the speed he was moving….well, I wouldn’t have lasted long.

And it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

I was living in Barbados for a month for a course at the University of the West Indies and the only way to see the island? Well that was going to be by car.

So I rented one. It came with a glowing “H” plate, which identified me as a tourist without even opening my mouth. Of course this worked both ways for me.

Late one night as a friend and I came up against a flooded road that forced us to turn around, a friendly local rolled-down his window and suggested we follow him. Without our “H” plate we may have been lost in the middle of sugar cane fields, sleeping in the car.

Instead we got home safely.

And then it came to the last week of the course and the end of Crop Over (Barbados’ carnival). Me and two friends from the course needed to buy our tickets for Foreday.

Foreday? Trucks filled with music, followed by groups of people, which are followed by a truck filled with drinks, wander through the streets of Barbados’ capital, Bridgetown from 2 a.m. until 8 a.m.!

Even the tickets for this event were a mission. About half an hour from our College in St. Lawrence’s gap was the store for our Band (group of people/trucks).

We set-off determined. And then we came-up on the round-about. I stayed in the outside lane to move to the second exit.

The black Vitara? He decided to go on the inside and then take me out! Coming from behind without a glance he veered into my lane only to stop short (luckily for my legs).

But that’s not the worst part. No one was touched, but I could barely breath…..so I kept driving. I wanted to get out of the round-about and I wanted to get away from the crazy man in the big jeep.

He followed, beeping his horn, flashing his lights, yelling at me even as I decided to go around the second round-about.

“Pull over Robyn. Just pull over or he’s just going to keep this up,” said my friends.

He pulled up beside me: “Don’t you know you have to stop when you hit someone? How can I look to see if you caused any damage?”

“You’re crazy! I didn’t even touch your car and you swerved into me!!”

He decided to mess with the wrong three women and we were clearly no tourists he wanted to take-on! Nonetheless he decided to prove his point by pulling in front of my car.

My friends got out of the car to confront him (I was too shaken-up). There was a lot of gesturing and shaking and then finally I heard:

“Great you gave us a “traffic lesson” now go on your way. Enough. Done.”

And my friends got back in the car…..we managed to get our tickets!