Guide to BELGIUM

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IJP1
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Guide to BELGIUM

Post by IJP1 »

Population: 10m
Sticker: B
Drives: Right, litres, km
Obligatory: Warning triangle, spare bulb kit, fire extinguisher.
Did you know?
There is a part of Belgium entirely surrounded by the Netherlands.
[b]System[b]
A fairly standard system of 'A' for motorways and 'N' for national roads predominates, but a very complicated and still ongoing process of regionalization (into Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) may change the regional situation. This would be horribly messy were it not for the fact that the Belgians have adopted 'E'-numbers almost wholesale on main and even not-so-main routes, which makes life really quite easy if you stay on the beaten track.
[b]Urban areas[b]
Signed variously, often white-on-blue.
[b]Traffic lights[b]
Red-green-amber-red. There are some other systems (flashing lights and such like) in Brussels.
[b]Road lighting[b]
Good. No cat's eyes, but good reflectors and extremely well-lit signs (the bulbseems to beplacedinside the sign to illuminate the whole thing very clearly).
[b]Network Numbering[b]
Theoretically clockwise 1-9 out of Brussels and zoned as in Great Britain, in practice Euro-route numbers (even three digits) predominate. The key road for most UK drivers, disappointingly for the Belgian tourist board, is the E-40, which despite taking at least four national numbers within Belgium, actually leads straight through it from northwest to southeast.
'E'-numbers given on white-on-blue rectangles, 'A' (for motorways - autoroute or autoweg) white-on-red but this rarely appears apart from on route numbers, 'N' white-on-blue or occasionallyit seems blue-on-white (ideas anyone?!)
[b]Motorway junctions[b]
Often cloverleaf, junction name given 1000m-2000m ahead and then an unbelievable fuss, with an array of blue diagrammatic signs, huge red boards, big green signs with orangey-yellow print, brown tourist signs and gantries assembled just about every 50m, with a reminder sign of the junction name right at the end. Motorway crossovers are actually more straightforward, generally with gantries.
Note: motorway surfaces can be very bad in Belgium - crossing from the Netherlands to Belgium on the Eindhoven-Antwerp(en) route is a classic example of this, where the smooth Dutch road gives way to the suspension-rapping unevenBelgian version.
[b]Signage[b]
Very aesthetically pleasing and fairly good apart from the 'quirk' below, with road numbers, junction numbers and present position given consistently. Signage in Brussels in chaotic, but then so it is in most big cities.
[b]Quirk[b]
Languages.
Northern Belgium (Flanders or Vlaanderen) is Dutch(Flemish)-speaking, southern Belgium (Wallonia or Wallonie) is French-speaking (apart from a tiny bit in the south which is officially German-French bilingual), and Brussels, which is entirely surrounded by Flanders, is in fact 80% French-speaking (at least in terms of residents, although many Flemings commute in during the day) and officially bilingual.
Signs in Flanders are given in Dutch only, even if pointing to a place in Wallonia (bizarrely the French is only given, italicized in brackets, if the place is in *France*!); likewise signs in Wallonia are in French only, even if pointing to a place in Flanders. You can easily skit in and out of one and the other on main routes (notably the E-40 east of Brussels towards Liege/Luik), and so the same place can have an entirely different name (other examples include Louvain/Leuven, Anvers/Antwerpen - French first) on signs, even for the same junction! In Brussels they are given bilingually French first separated by a hyphen (eg 'Mons-Bergen'), and also German is used alongside French in the far south.
Confused? If you haven't done it, you will be!
[b]Final thought[b]
'B' on the back of the car is taken by many other Europeans to mean 'Bad' - the standard of driving in Belgium is diabolical, you can even stand on a bridge in Brussels and watch people drive into gridlock, predicting it well in advance! The unassembling of such gridlock is an unholy mess, generally involving cars on footpaths, cones being removed, and other unpleasantries! However, the motorway tunnel under Brussels has got to be tried, it's a great laugh.
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Post by t1(M) »

The Belgian drivers' reputation is partly the result of the very late intruction of a driving test - 1978. This means that even now any Belgian driver over about 40 never had to take a test.
Junction numbers - one confusing quirkis that the numbers of interpolated junctions are displayed with very small letters but full size numbers, viz 3a . If you are looking for junction 3 and reach 3a first, it's easy to miss the "a".
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Post by M4Simon »

Belgium. Now this is a country I can identify with, having driven there a couple of times. I've experienced the Brussels motorway tunnels and survived. I was doing alright in urban Brussels until the full impact of the priority to the right rule hit home - in other words, people could pull out of any side road any time they wanted to. To put it bluntly, that scared the hell out of me.
I found that the best way to deal with a roundabout in Brissuels was to shut your eyes, put your foot down and pray - cars seemed to be coming from all directions.
I also got horribly lost in Brussels once on account that the gap between my two maps left out a small but significant right turn which, instead of leading me to the heart of the city, took me on a long sight-seeing tour of the district of Anderlecht. And I thought Anderlecht was a football team!
I also recall that the motorway surfaces were very poor, with the odd exception where they had clearly resurfaced / reconstructed the road. This was noticeable on the Ostende to Brussels road.
Watch out for the trams in some cities!
Simon
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DavidB
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Post by DavidB »

>Did you know?
>There is a part of Belgium entirely surrounded by the Netherlands.
It's a place called Baarle-Hertog. It actually consists of several smallparts of Belgium surrounded by Dutch territory - and there are even some verysmall parcels of Dutch land within the Belgian areas! Rather than take this discussion off topic,here'sa linkwith moreinformation (the site is in English):
http://home.tiscalinet.be/historie/Home ... e_eng.html
Regards
DavidB
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stu531
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Post by stu531 »

This little bit of land was a pain in the bum for me for ages. Why? Well I'm lucky enough to work with digital maps, and for ages I was under the impression that the maps we were sent were wrong. I had to dig around for ages before chancing upon the fact that they were correct: As you say, there is an area which contains land parcels of intermigling Dutch/Belgian areas. A bizarre historical quirk..

When are we going to get a guide to this place? ;-)
http://www.sealandgov.com
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Post by RobC »

Sealand. We could do an outline, but from the photos there appears to be 0km of roads so it'd be a bit empty!
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Post by IJP1 »

Just returned from a stint including two lengthy trips through Flanders.
Oh dear! Belgium really is quite a mess roads-wise. Appalling drivers, inconsistent signage and dodgy surfaces do not make for a pleasant driving experience.
Got through heading east to Cologne with few difficulties. Heading west was another story. I wasn't sure whether to take the exit from the R4 near Gent signed 'E40 Brussels' as I wanted 'E40 Oostende/Brugge'. I assumed not, until right at the junction was a random sign on orange background pointing off to Oostende. Then Oostende disappeared and I ended up heading into Gent. The E40 was signed straight-on, but then disappeared from a junction signing the E17 to the left, so I assumed it was straight on, until I saw a sign at the junction itself stating the road on the left *was* the E40! Over a tramline, through a red light, and a mad rush later I just about managed to get to Calais on time - but not before it too had disappeared from a major sign at the Jabbeke motorway junction.
And what about those motorway junctions where you head off, and then the signs indicating whether you head left or right are written in the smallest possible print at the junction itself?
Awful, awful stuff!
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Post by owen b »

I lived in Brussels from 1994-1996, close to Place Meiser. This is a major intersection on what amounts to Brussels' middle ring, in the form of a complex offset at-grade hamburgerwith a major at-grade tramline running through the roundabout across the main flow of traffic. Bear in mind also that this intersection was partly unsignalledwith priority given to traffic entering the roundabout. The general behaviour of traffic entering the junction on any of the lesser routes was simply to pile headlong onto the roundabout and make directly forits preferred exit.This junction wason my daily commute. After a few months gradually gaining confidence, one morning I was blithely slicing through the usual maelstrom when I became strangely aware that the surrounding traffic had melted away. This was the morning I narrowly missed being T-boned by a tram.
A narrow second place in the Brussels league of bad junctions (very much a league of its own) is neighbouring Place Montgomery. This is quite conventional compared to Place Meiser, basically a huge roundabout linking two highways (similar to M25/A12 or many others in the UK). The trouble is, at least when I was last there, the roundabout is huge, unsignalled, has many side roads leading into it and has very high traffic flows. Unlike Place Meiser, priority is with traffic on the roundabout. Traffic on the roundabout tends to move very quickly and with very little lane discipline and insufficient space between exits to indicate sufficiently. Consequently entering or exiting the roundabout is a game of high stakes chicken, no quarter given!
I haven't driven in Brussels for about five years, so things might have changed, but I doubt it.
I understand that Belgium has one of the worst road accident records in Europe.
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Post by GRC697 »

i've just come back from a couple of weeks in gent and felt the need to add something here.
i wish i had read this discussion topic before i left. i had no idea that priority laws wereso idiosyncratic or that trams (and trolley buses) exist in gent.
firstly priority...what is the law? i still have no idea. occaisionally there were signs at cross roads showing it (poor paint sketch attached...priority is for your turning left) but you are normally left to your own devices.
i never had a problem in charleroi or brussels previously so had thought it was gent specific.
trams...i had no idea there were trams in gent. i met my first one at a blind cross roads where i thought i had priority. abs goes mad on cobbles and i never allowed myself to think i had priority again.
i particularly liked the trams with indicators that change direction at junctions. seem to have priority over straight through traffic when turning left at traffic light intersections.
gent centre its self is a maze of partly one-way, restricted cobbled streets and makes for moderately stressful driving. a particularly interesting effect of the cobbles was that the gaps between them filled up with snow melt and then re-froze. this made for negligble grip...and belgians generally seems to drive as normal in snowy/icey conditions.
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Post by GRC697 »

well i did attached a file but it dissapeared. try again
belgian cross roads.bmp
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Post by Phil »

<< trams...i had no idea there were trams in gent. i met my first one at a blind cross roads where i thought i had priority. abs goes mad on cobbles and i never allowed myself to think i had priority again.
i particularly liked the trams with indicators that change direction at junctions. seem to have priority over straight through traffic when turning left at traffic light intersections. >>
A relative of mine used to work in Brussels during the arly 70s and the law at that time was that trams had priority overALL other road vehicles. If you positioned your car on or foul of the tram tracks, the trams would push you out the way (literally) and it was tough luck if it damaged your vehicle.(This compares with the British law in which Trams are grouped in the same catagory as busses and other motor vehicles and any tram atempting such a manover would be prosocuted for dangerous driving). She also said that it was common practice for road markings to be laid down with ordinary paint (long after other counties had adopted the plastic stuff) hence they had a tendancy to disapperar after a few months. Also even in the 70s, the road surfaces werebad compared to Belgium's neighbours
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Post by owen b »

Trams in Belgium: The law is simple : DON'T MESS - they are bigger than you. At least, this is how whatever law exists was interpreted when I lived in Belgium.
Roundabouts : It may have changed since I was there, but Belgium was unusual to say the least in having a good number of roundabouts of both the priority to circulating traffic and the priority to entering traffic variety. The latter variety had no road markings on the entrances to the roundabout, the former variety had a row of white triangles across the entry to indicate "Give Way".
Priorite a droite. This was never very clear to me, but in general where priorite a droite applied it seemed that there were no give way markings at junctions. This was typical in residential areas off the main routes.
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Post by IJP1 »

I MUST SUPPORT, IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS, WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID ABOUT THE APPALLING DRIVING STANDARDS THAT PREVAIL IN BELGIUM!
I would call on the other EU 24 states (OK, 23 excluding Portugal, which is even worse), not to recognize Belgian driving licences. They are just the most clueless bunch of road baffoons you'll ever come across!
In two hours driving/walkingin Brussels recently I saw no fewer than TEN accidents being attended to! TEN! By sheer grace of God none of them involved me!
The road system is a farce too. Good street lighting and good lane discipline are the only good things about Belgium, otherwise try to avoid its roads!
(It's actually a beautiful little country otherwise, of course!)
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Post by M4Mark »

Thanks everyone for all the warnings, I am planning on going to the Spa F1 Grand Prix at the end of August.
I assumed driving in Belgium would be like driving in France.
My trip to Le Mans in 2003wasmy greatest driving experience so far, the roads weresmooth and the driving was fun (except getting lost in Le Mans Town Centre, the signing was terrible)
What are the roads like to and around Spa?
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Post by M4Simon »

Mark Stevens: <<I assumed driving in Belgium would be like driving in France.>>
I've driven in both and would willingly drive thousands of km in urban and rural France but would think long and hard about driving in urban Belgium again. I'd certainly check my insurance coverage before I left home. (I would wherever I went, but I'd double check for Belgium).
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Post by IJP1 »

Mark and Simon,
Agreed entirely.
French signage is very poor, but the roads themselves are indeed OK.
In Belgium, Mark, stick to the motorways, try to go during the night (or at least well outside peak hours), watch for cars undertaking you, and just keep your wits about you! But if you're keen on driving, yes, do it - even if only once - just for the experience!
Ian P.
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Post by midshires »

When I first visited Belgium the traffic light sequence was RED, GREEN, RED+GREEN, RED.
This was in 1959, when the signals were two-aspect, with no amber light. Not sure when these were replaced by more conventional ones.
Andy Emmerson.
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Post by SarahJ »

I've just got back from a drive through Belguim to Koeln and noticed a strange thing. We were driving at night and the Motorway lights turned off at 12.30. Now i knew it was coming, but when we got to the French part of Belguim, they were lit, except a small section of the E40 past brussels/leuven which falls into flemmish territory for a few km's where they were off.
BTW, on the way back at Aachen we decided not to take the E40 but go straight on, into the Netherlands and onto to Belguim, rejoining the E40 at Leuven. It was a nice drive, but all the way from the Border to Leuven the road seemed to be going downhill. Was very strange for a country that allways seems to be flat. It was dark so we were unable to see the countryside arround, but ahead we could just see the motorway drop. Oh and finaly, when in the Netherlands we came accross a sign on the motorway that said steep hill, beware,. Sorry Holland, but the M1 up to Luton from the M25 has steeper hills.
SJ
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Post by drumlake72 »

Just got back from a week in Flanders so I thought I would add my views:
- The autoroutes are nice and quiet (mainly D2 though), but the signing is dreadful and the sliproads are too short with some horrendously tight curves. On the one occasion it rained, the spray seemed to be much worse than I'm used to.
- Repairs on all roads seem to consist of pouring a bucket of tar into the hole and hoping for the best.
- The trams are indeed lethal: I like to think of myself as an observant driver, but I was nearlywiped out twice in De Panne. Whose idea was it torun tram lines straight across suburban roundabouts?
- The minor roads running alongside the canals are just fantastic though - incredibly fast and straight with great visibility.
- The road markings on some crossroads are very poor - it's not remotely clear which road has priority.
- Driving in the big conurbations is a rather confusing experience- I was so knackered after driving in and out of Bruges thatwe took the trainwhen we visitedGhent (a much better idea).
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Post by Jam35 »

<<A target=_top>>

Actually, the Highway Code includes such gems as:

"Buses, coaches and trams. Give priority to these vehicles when you can do so safely"

"Always give way to trams. Do not try to race or overtake them."

"Tram stops. Where the tram stops at a platform, either in the middle or at the side of the road, you MUST follow the route shown by the road signs and markings. At stops without platforms you MUST NOT drive between a tram and the left-hand kerb when a tram has stopped to pick up passengers."

If drivers drove like they were meant to, the British approach to trams wouldn't be all that different from the Belgian one.
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