Driving in Turkey

It is perfectly safe and it is nice to have the freedom that comes with a rental car. My mother and I drove from Bodrum to Antalya. I never felt uncomfortable driving.

it's pretty safe, don't worry. however, some roads are in really bad shape - their road standard is not on par with other european countries, so be careful and expect delays.

We spent this past Sept in Turkey and had a car for about 25 days. We logged a few thousand Kms. Yes the driving in Turkey is fine but one has to be cautious on smaller back roads especially driving in the hills. Turks like to pass on blind curves. Most roads we found were fine. There were some in Eastern Turkey that had long stretches of gravel. Turkey is undertaking major road construction in every region we visited. Occasionally the new road just ends and you hit gravel for a stretch and then construction picks up again. We rented cars twice both had some damage so we took photos of all the damaged areas. Also it is important to check the condition of your tires including the spare. After two flats we discovered the tires had been patched previously. In the areas you mentioned the roads are fine. Be aware, there are lots of police on the highways. We have no reservations about driving in Turkey
Enjoy.

>is it reasonably safe to drive in the Turkish country?< Define "reasonably safe." Statistically the answer is an emphatic NO. The fatality rate per motor vehicle mile in Turkey is 10 times that of the USA. This data is taken from the Turkey Country Road report at the Association for Safe International Road Travel. ($30 donation: http://www.asirt.org&#41;. Empirically, Turkey has an absolutely appalling record of highway safety. No amount of anecdotal reports of being "perfectly safe" can refute the hard statistical evidence. I don't like being a spoilsport or a "nervous nellie" but I long ago lost any tolerance for sugarcoating the realities of international road travel. The annual global death rate for road travel is now one and a quarter million people a year! Injury rate is 10 million annually. (That said, the vast majority of these unfortunate folk are pedestrians living in less developed countries.) Does all this bad news stop me from driving in Turkey? Absolutely not. I'll be driving there in a couple of weeks. Just be aware that there IS additional risk and be prepared to take preventive measures. See: http://turkey.usembassy.gov/driver_safety_briefing.html http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/trans/Car/SafeDriving/ Iyi yolculuklar!

Hi Michael! We're Canadians, and we rented a car to travel in Turkey for two weeks in March/April, 2006. Here are some True/Falses about what you wrote, based on our experiences: T/F - You need an International Driving Permit in Turkey? False - No one asked me for one. Not the car rental company. Not the police. My state-issued drivers license with embossed photo ID, credit card, and passport are all we needed. T/F - The roads in Turkey are bad? False - Turkey has modern freeways and well-surfaced paved roads. T/F - Poor signage? True - The warning signs are easy enough to understand, but directional signs are not as good as we're used to in North America. Like in the rest of Europe, the concept of putting "North" and "South" does not seem to have occurred to sign-painters. You can partly overcome bad signage by using good maps, like the 344-page Koy Koy Turkiye road atlas, that you'll find in book stores. T/F - Accidents are a horror? False! Quite false! - We actually did have a fender-bender. The police were friendly and courteous throughout. They even offered us tea! In filing the reports, they made sure we understood what was being written and pointed out that we were not at fault and, importantly, that insurance would cover everything. No Turkish jails. No "Midnight Express." (There was no personal injury involved and no liquor. A breathalyzer test was administered just to be sure. Never drink and drive in a foreign country, even if you'd be stupid enough to do it at home!) A word about insurance. Your standard North American auto insurance does not cover you outside the US and Canada. You'll rely on the car rental company's auto insurance. I would suggest paying the extra bucks-per-day for wrap-around full coverage, even if elsewhere you might be in the habit of declining it. David

Here's a Q & A I did for some Canadian friends considering driving in Turkey. Because of the size limitations here, I'll post it in two parts: Q - We might want to rent a car in Turkey. Can we drive in Turkey? A - We did. Although some guide books warn against maniacal drivers, we found that you can drive safely in Turkey if you drive defensively, always exercising care. (And I do not mean that the way the police seem to, as a buzz-phrase. On the road in Turkey, you will always have to allow for the other guy.) Q - Tell us about the worst hazards. A - Turkish drivers like to run red lights. It's common. This is very dangerous for you, although not for the reason that you might initially think. Your first reaction might be, if I go on green I might get creamed by someone running the red light. But if you drive defensively and always look both ways after the light turns green, this is unlikely to be a problem for you. The real danger is that you might get rear-ended. Suppose you approach a traffic light at cruising speed and it turns yellow. You might decide to stop. What, though, do you suppose is going through the mind of the guy coming behind? He sees the yellow too. Noting your speed, he figures that you're intending to run the light and he wants to do the same. He accelerates as you brake! My advice is that at yellow and red lights you stop as gradually as you safely can. Make sure you leave reaction time for the idiot behind. Save hard braking for actual emergencies.

Very sound and useful advice on safe driving strategies contained above. There is one point with which – as you might expect - I cannot concur. >T/F - Accidents are a horror? False! Quite false! < It is indeed encouraging to read that your post-fender bender experience with the police was not at all disagreeable. However, I fail to see what bearing this has on the horrific character of automobile accidents, in Turkey or anywhere else. This can range from minor to catastrophic wherever you drive. Once again, folks, individual reports/anecdotes are meaningless when evaluating potential traffic safety risk. Aggregate statistics may not predict individual outcomes (as, for example, countless cancer survivors in high risk pools will attest) but they are the most reliable measures that we have. Accordingly, I feel obliged to amend the statistics I reported in an earlier post. I went back to look at my copy of ASIRT's Turkey Road Travel Report and found my figures – taken from memory – in error. Here are the exact quotes, based on Turkish and World Health Organization statistics. How you wish to interpret them is up to you. "Road crash rates in Turkey are five times the EU average. Losses due to road crash injuries, fatalities and property damages are equivalent to 2% of the GDP." "The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle kilometers is 11.6 compared to 1.0 in the US and 0.80 in the UK. "

Thanks to everyone for their stories and advice. We are currently in Istanbul and the street traffic is horrible, with the excellent tram service I don't know why anyone would drive in the city. We also met a family from Brisbane with four small children, they are on a three month trip throughout Greece, Turkey, Italy and France driving most of the way. They had just completed a two week drive through Turkey with no problems, so we are planning a trip later in April on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Thanks again for all the comments.