Is it worth driving in Barbados?
Driving in Barbados can be tricky, but it is definitely worthwhile. While the island has issues with potholes, signposts, and google maps, driving gives you the ability to explore all the wonderful island of Barbados has to offer. It’s road network is extensive, rarely too busy (unless you’re near a fast food drive-in), and the other drivers are friendly. Just keep your fingers crossed you don’t get stuck behind a ZR…
Lefts and rights
The first thing about driving in another country is to know what side of the road they drive on. As a former colony of Britain, Barbados drives on the left. If you’re used to driving on the right, this might be a little odd at first. I grew up driving on the left, but I also don’t mind driving on the right – you get used to it soon enough. Or you crash head-on into someone. One or the other.
What are the roads like?
Answer: they’re okay. If you’re used to driving in the countryside of the UK, driving in Barbados will be fine for you. I grew up in the middle of nowhere Wiltshire so am very used to the kinds of things you’ll find here: narrow roads, potholes that rattle your teeth, and people stopping in the middle of the road to chat to their friends about who they saw at the Post Office. That sort of thing.
As the roads here are made of lime (as a limestone island, a plentiful resource) rather than tarmac, they wear out quickly. Apparently car tyres actually wear the roads out more than the roads wear out the tyres. It’s also why there’s hardly any motorbikes on the island – because lime is a lot slippier when wet than tarmac is. So if you tried to ride your motorbike home on one of the (not infrequent) rainy days you may well end up sliding into a Post Office and find yourself the topic of conversation for the next ten years.
While many of the main highways are well paved, a lot of the roads are pretty bad. Even some of the busy coastal roads sometimes have roadworks that seem to dig up the road only to leave it as sand and dirt for weeks at a time. There seems to be an equally haphazard approach to signposting, with some areas extremely well done, and others with stop signs seemingly placed at random on busy roads, or with signs about a junction that isn’t actually there.
Barbados is, it must be remembered, a developing country, so to expect pristine, pothole free roads would be a lot seeing as they don’t yet seem to have managed to achieve that in Birmingham. Understanding this, Barbados’ road network is actually pretty impressive: it covers the entire country, including some extremely remote and hilly parts of the island. Major blockages, such as palm trees blown over in heavy winds and mudslides caused by tropical rain, are dealt with pretty quickly.
Google Maps in Barbados: driving round in circles
One thing that makes driving in Barbados difficult is the fact that Google Maps Barbados is terrible. The maps load fine, but they have a mildly inconvenient habit of directing you into people’s gardens, fields of sugar cane, or off the edge of a small cliff.
If you ever decide to try and use the audio cues, the voiceover lady will say things like ‘take the 1st exit at the roundabout’ while quite clearly indicating on the map for you to take the 3rd exit.
To use Google Maps thus requires the mental agility of an apache helicopter pilot. As I now make it to my destination around 80% of the time I feel I may have missed my calling in life, although I guess an 80% success rate might not quite be good enough to be a helicopter pilot.
Bajan Drivers
Bajan drivers are, almost without exception, extremely friendly and helpful. You rarely get stuck trying to pull out of a junction because someone will stop and let you out. If you’re ever stuck in traffic and unsure of what’s going on ahead, you can just flag someone in a passing car and ask them. I’ve had people pull up next to me at traffic lights and ask me how I am. People beep to say thank you (which is amazing), and sometimes people beep back (‘you’re welcome’). It is a very friendly place to drive. For people that are nervous drivers, I imagine this helps a lot.
Some questions I have about driving in Barbados:
Why doesn’t anyone ever indicate? It’s hard enough to try and listen to the Google Maps lady direct me the wrong way without having to guess why you’re slowing down or have suddenly put your car into reverse on a busy road.
Why don’t you ever take your lights off main beam (‘brights’) at night? It’s hard enough for me to see the potholes at night, without being blinded by a 4×4’s xenon super dazzle lightbulbs firing into my eyes.
Why doesn’t anyone get their car fixed? I’ve seen cars missing the entire front section of their car, engine exposed and all, and yet this seems to be a perfectly fine way to get about. It doesn’t annoy me, I just don’t understand.
What the hell do your hand signals mean? Locals seem to have an entire semaphore based language for signalling to fellow drivers. Unfortunately I don’t know what it means so I may well be missing out on important things like the score in the cricket or an update on the weather.
ZR Vans...
ZR vans are the most frustrating thing about driving in Barbados. They’re minibuses that operate along a fixed route like a bus, but are allowed to stop wherever they like to drop off and pick people up. This sounds fine. Almost like a good idea. Until, that is, you experience one in the flesh. Not only do they stop at random times, they also refuse to move out of the way so that people can pass. They seem to have a pathological intent on being at the front of a long queue of annoyed drivers.
Last week a ZR skipped a long line of cars queuing at some traffic lights, pulled up alongside me, and waved as if there was an emergency. He then pulled in front of me and proceeded to drive at 15mph for the next few miles. Along a road that I couldn’t overtake on
You’ll frequently sit for ten minutes in traffic, only to realise that it was two ZR drivers who were passing each other and decided that spot was where they’d take their lunch break: in the middle of the road, having a chat, while everyone behind them gets increasingly annoyed. It is, I think, the only time I hear people use their horns in anger.
The one thing that makes me feel slightly amiable towards ZR vans is that they all have their own unique little tunes that periodically blast out of horns. I assume it’s to warn everyone that they should prepare to be stuck in a long line of traffic for the foreseeable…
KFC and Chefette Traffic
Barbados is a small country with a big population, and people like to drive. In fact, there’s barely any pavements, so even if you wanted to do anything other than drive it would be practically impossible. That said, traffic in Barbados is, most of the time, fine. There is one exception: the fast food traffic.
When Friday and Saturday night roll around, everyone drives to their favourite drive-in fast food places: Chefette, and KFC. This is fine – everyone loves a good bit of fast food. The problem is, the drive-in lines accommodate about 6 cars, and there’s frequently ten or more cars wanting to get in. Any roads with a KFC or Chefette essentially become impassable between about 7 – 9pm on Friday and Saturday. Something to watch out for if you’ve got a dinner reservation at Burger King.
Driving in Barbados: the finish line
Driving in Barbados can sometimes involve a lot of pothole-dodging, a lot of patience for ZRs, and knowledge of how to avoid all the KFCs and Chefettes on the island. It does, however, give you the freedom to explore the beautiful island of Barbados. Oh, and you’ll get people beeping to say thank you – a fantastic bonus.
A Final Note
As I’ve said, driving in Barbados is definitely worth it. One word of caution, however: there is no blood alcohol limit for driving in Barbados. This means that late in the evenings, the roads can have drink drivers on them. And it goes without saying that it’s not sensible to drink and drive, especially in a foreign country.
