Driving in Belgium

I have not experienced this in Belgium and I drive there quite regularly. Matter of fact I drove from St Vith through Liege and up to The Netherlands Saturday night. I've been from Brussels to Brugge and never encountered a problem. I actually prefer driving in Belgium over Germany. Your husband will do fine! Enjoy your trip.

I´ve heard that as well, but haven´t really experienced it... with the exception of the Brussels ring and the immediate roads that feed into it. Traffic here is always heavy and it seems to bring out the worst in people... kind of like the DC Beltway, if you need a comparison.

I also heard the horror stories but haven't seen much. My experience is that Belgian drivers are more courteous to pedestrians than many of the French are. Apart from Brussels cab drivers, who are a legitimate menace.

Thanks so much for the replies. It sounds like what I would have expected if I hadn't read the guide books.

Sorry to weigh in here a little late, just getting over a few days of grunge. I'm afraid that I disagree a little. Firstly, drivers aside, the roads in Belgium are "interesting" - very bumpy and often somewhat narrow compared with other European motorways. I can always tell from the road when we have crossed the border into Belgium. Also - and this is a BIG also - the road signs - where there are any, can be quite confusing. Can >anybody< tell me whether on any given day it is better to use R1 or R2 to get around Antwerpen? And, coming from Gent which one you'll wind up on from which lane. I've been through there a dozen times and have yet to work it out... ¶ As far as Belgian drivers - I have written about this previously on this board. Sometimes their driving is "imaginative", "creative" and sometimes "downright scary". In years of driving in Belgium, I have noted, especially around Brussels and north of Lille, weaving, under-taking, signals-what-signals, and cutting across 2 lanes for a late exit. I love to drive throughout Belgium, but I will say you MUST be switched on at all times. Oh yeah, and some Belgians drive slowly, many drive a little fast, and quite a few drive very fast. None of these comments are from books or websites, they are all based on personal experience. - ... - Then again, many are very nice. And, reasonably priced fuel. Gas up if going into Germany or the Netherlands. Eke it out if going near Luxembourg though - cheapest in Western Europe there.

As a regular foreign driver in Belgium I agree with Nigel. The sign post are a nightmare. Interspersed with important navigation signs are ones advertising MacDonalds or the nearest supermarket or the cheapest hotels. Why is it that in the rest of Europe motorway signs are in blue and all others in green but in Belgium it appears to be the other way round? The road surfaces are full of potholes but more scary still in winter they do not seem to grit the motorways, especially the one at Spa which is high up and always covered in snow in the winter. Keep your wits about you, a car in your rear view mirror may look ald and decrepit and travelling slowly but it just as likely doing 150 km per hour.

Thanks for the most recent feedback. We are leaving tomorrow, so it came just in time. I will try to be an extra alert navigator for my husband and watch for the road signs. Sadly, we have plenty of practice dodging potholes here in Pittsburgh.

The Belgians are excellent drivers - not agressive at all. What they do on the freeways though, is, if they want to pass you - and like in most European countries they're only allowed to pass you on the left lane - if you block that lane with your American slow speed they "push" you away from that lane, they almost tailgate you until you move to the center or right lane. But that's it.

Regarding Andreas's description of how fast drivers will "push" slow drivers out of the left-hand lane: They do the same thing here in Portland, Oregon. Come up real close behind you and tailgate you til you move. (Or not.) They do this in the less-fast lanes too. Maybe that do this in Pittsburgh as well. Joan

Well, I'm back, and here's what my husband thought about drivers in Belgium. He thought they were very good drivers for the most part, but they tailgate. We were driving mostly in the southern part of Belgium on two lane roads, and there was little traffic. Perhaps it's a different story up north where there is more traffic, but it was quite easy driving in the southern part of the country. Now driving into Brussels, which we did to return the car, was something else entirely - a complete and total nightmare!

I've experienced that same nightmare, Carroll. Glad you survived.

"Now driving into Brussels, which we did to return the car, was something else entirely - a complete and total nightmare!" Yep. One of the points frequently made here is that driving into European cities is usually not a good idea, more trouble than it's worth, and usually avoidable and not necessary because there's good public transportation into the cities.

I should have known better. My original plan was to return the car to a smaller town near Bastogne and take the train to Brussels. However, my husband wanted to go to Waterloo, so I thought it would be easier to stop on the way to Brussels than to take the train and bus out to Waterloo. It looked like Gare Midi (where there was a rental office) was on the outskirts of Brussels, so I didn't think we'd really be driving into the city. Wrong!! It was more hideous than I could ever have imagined. We couldn't find the rental office, so we tried to find another one in the city using the GPS, but that one wasn't there. We couldn't find any place to park so I could get out and ask someone. Finally, I suggested we drive to the airport and return the car there. All together, we spent 2 hours driving in Brussels [INVALID] a zillion cars, many double parked, pedestrians walking right in front of the car, etc. I have never been so tense, and I wasn't even driving! My husband said he would never drive in a European city again.