Not a big deal, from time to time it's OK,
and many of us do it. 
On a private road with no other traffic, yes.
On any public road, no.
I dunno Martin, from my experiences driving/riding over on that Continent, I reckon you shoulda written '
and MOST of us do it.' - not just '
many'!!
And another thing for our '
non-European Forum Members' to remember is that many of the roads over there in Europe (& in Oz too, for that matter!
) often aren't
anywhere near as wide as the majority of the secondary & minor roads in the US; and it's not only '
normal practice' for drivers/riders to treat those '
centre dividing white lines' as simply an '
vague indication' of where the middle of the road is for when there might be oncoming traffic; but it's also often
essential to use your side of the road and also a fairly substantial bit of the other side too as a matter of course, basically requiring you to pull partially onto the verge on your side just to let vehicles going the other way pass!! :lecturef_smilie:
Sure, it's likely easier to stay on 'your' side of the road when you're on a '
narrower than most cars' Spyder than it might be if you're driving a full-sized car, but in many parts of Europe there are still corners & sections of road where you have
NO CHOICE but to cross & straddle the centre white line if you want to use that road at all! Can you imagine how it felt driving what was effectively a full-Sized (approx 7ft wide
plus extra width for the 'Arctic Truck Wide Wheels & fenders' :shocked: ) Nissan Armada on these twee little roads that felt like they were barely 8ft wide
total??!
Even just the little bit of Spyder Ryding I've done in the UK & the Republic of Ireland drove the need to modify my expectations home to me - you simply
cannot ride thru many of the villages without straddling the centre white line, if not going fully onto the other side of the road, and that only gets worse when there's a bunch of cars parked in the villages too - at least they're usually courteous enough to park in a bunched up line on one side of the road, then leave a bit of a gap a few vehicles long before there's the next bunched up line of parked cars on the other side of the road, so if any oncoming vehicles are also being courteous & pulling over one or two at a time into the gap between bunches so that you can generally leap frog your way thru and eventually weave your way out the other side of the village, albeit straddling &/or completely crossing the white line
most of the time you're moving!! And that 'straddle' bit can get even worse again once you leave the villages, where it's often a case of
IF there's a centre white line at all, cos the 2-way roads are often too narrow to even
HAVE a white line down the middle; or if they did, people from outside rural Europe would think it was barely wide enough to be a bloody
cycle way and that it was
not a road way at all!! nojoke
Quite a lot of the roads just aren't wide enough to warrant a centre diving line anyway, and on those that do, it's generally treated as a 'guide' to show you how much of the rest of the road you need leave for oncoming vehicles when you hafta put your kerbside wheels onto the verge just to let them squeeze past without taking your side mirrors off as they do!! Only they often do, anyway - take your traffic side mirror off that is - you'll generally be the one responsible for wiping the other side mirror off on the roadside hedge/vegetation; stone wall; or that bloody pedestrian who stepped outta their front door into the side of said Armada the very second I tried to squeeze past the parked cars on the other side of the road with my RH wheels up on the sidewalk! :shocked: (I dunno what he was so angry about tho?!
I didn't run over his foot, and I did try to apologise for wiping my mirror off on his arm - something I felt he really didn't deserve after the foul-mouthed serve he gave me when I asked him to pick it up & pass it back in thru the window cos I couldn't get out into the tiny gap to pick it up, and he couldn't leave his doorway 'til I'd gone anyway?!
:cus: )
So you really can't arbitrarily apply your '
North American developed, Driving Morals, Accepted Practices, & Prejudices' to riding/driving in Europe & expect everyone there will also be doing the same,
especially not once you leave the large cosmopolitan cities &/or the Motorways/Autobahns/Major Roads! :lecturef_smilie:
Or when you're driving/riding on 'semi-abandoned private roads' in the back-blocks somewhere!!
hyea:
Just Sayin'
