Car Cars

Harry and I were talking about vehicles this morning. It is amazing how much you can tell about a place by their methods of transportation!

In Jaffray, it seems everyone has a truck. And we call them trucks, not utes or tray backs like they do in Oz.

I remember the first time Vas met all my boys. We were in the driveway in Kragmont and the three of them pulled up in their ¾ and 1-ton diesel trucks. Poor Vassi.. there was a lot of testosterone in that driveway. The boys, and the big white vehicles they stepped out of, all stood a whole lot taller than we did! Even on tip-toes it's hard to reach into the back of those things. They were work trucks: dirty, with big fuel tanks and supersized wrenches filling up the back. They made quite a statement.

Calgary is full of mid-sized cars and ATV’s: like my Subaru, Jana’s Jeep and Jeri’s Rav. Not a lot of fancy cars here, but comfortable mid sized vehicles. People want to get around relatively cheaply, but are not willing to sacrifice comfort for economy. Like Vancouver, most of the vehicles contain a single person.

In the cities of Oz, cars are more of the ‘go’. Holdens are popular, and there is a huge variety of styles and colors. But there are lots of other manufacturers as well. Of course everyone drives down the wrong side of the road. Here too it seems, comfort is the main influence. A little smaller than North American cars for the most part, they are probably a little more fuel efficient than those speeding along the Deerfoot in Calgary. Maybe the one place where Australia is a little more environmentally sensitive, although I think it has more to do with economics.

In the more rural areas of Oz, everyone also has a ‘truck’, but these are little white ‘utes’: utility vehicles. Utes are smaller than a half ton, usually white and are either Holdens or made by Toyota.

In central Oz it is all about the Land Cruisers. Instead of the colorful array of Dodges and Fords as in the bush of B.C., you know you are in the outback by the sheer numbers of white four-wheel-drive Toyotas. I needed one of these large, substantial vehicles to travel where I did. You would never drive red, washboard, dirt, tracks of the outback in a Rav or Subaru: they would simply shake themselves apart very quickly.

Government people that make up most of the working population of central Oz, drive the more expensive Prados or higher end Land Crusiers, while the front line people, like me, and most of the aboriginal people, drive Troopies. These are expensive, but basic, Toyotas. You can carry nine people and a lot of gear a long way, and when you are done, hose these puppies out; no lavish interiors here. They are usually diesel and have two big fuel tanks to travel into areas without petrol stations. They have snorkels to take you through roads without proper drainage. Troopies are a little top heavy, prone to roll, as they sit high to provide lots of clearance: even I could navigate a river bed in a Toyota Troop Carrier.

Toyotas are also popular in Oman: but it isn’t the top end that you see so much as the bottom. When I first arrived in 2004, little white Echos literally dotted the landscape. Taxi’s, work crews.. everyone had one of these reliable, cheap little things stashed away someplace.

But Toyota replaced the Echo with Yaris the year I lived in Nizwa, Oman, which just hasn’t caught on nearly so well. Everyone wants a Camri these days. I had a Mitsubitshi Lancer, which was a little bigger and is pretty popular among middle class working Arabs and expats alike. All the vehicles have a warning bell, set at 120 kph.. These of course are ignored and everyone drives down the well-lit dual carriage ways at 140 kph, listening to the radio and the Ding! Ding! Ding! of the alarm system the whole time. There is just no way to shut them off!

Of course in Dubai, (UAE) where everything is bigger, you get the stretch limos, high end luxury cars, Hummers and the big trucks with the sleepers in the back. They have a little more money to waste than the average Omani.

In India, they still make and drive the old Hindustan Ambassadors. The Hybrid cars are popular too. Vehicles of all sorts are full of people and the roads are crowded: no one pays attention to any lines that may or may not be painted on the road. So vehicles need to be small and cheap to run. There are still bikes there, and little motor-cycle type taxis. I was in southern India, and there were vehicles everywhere… traffic was congested and slow… oh the people!

In Bulgaria? Well, there you could drive your horse and carriage down the main street: not in Sofia, but pretty well everywhere else. No worry about keeping up to the Joneses there!

How great is that?!