There'll be no bank robberies today – but only because the banks are closed for a holiday. Instead today is a feriado, a Bank holiday, in this case for the Catholic holiday of Assumption, when the Virgin Mary was transported into Heaven with her body and soul united. However, for many Portuguese it'll just be another long weekend and they'll be turning to their other great passion: killing each other on the roads.
Portuguese driving is notoriously bad, so much so that even French drivers have a good reputation. Since the holiday season started in the middle of July there have been over 2.000 accidents, 60 deaths and over 300 serious injuries. In the weekend of 1st August there were 16 deaths, and last weekend alone 20 people were killed in a 24h period.
For a London driver, rarely able to get above 30mph most of the time, this need for speed is baffling. Portuguese drivers, mainly in black or silver Seat's or in expensive Audi’s or Mercede’s, will rocket past our little Modus, sometimes forcing cars coming in the other direction to move to the side of the road. Often speeding drivers will be in commercial vehicles, easy to spot as all company vehicles are two seater's with a metal grill behind the front seats, or in company vans. Because the drivers don't own these cars, they'll drive like Tiago Monteiro around the Portuguese roads. In the Aveiro/Oiã area there are vehicles from two companies that we are always wary of: Würth (who co-incidentally sponsor Formula 1) and Centroauto. When we see these on the road we always get ready to move out of the way.
The GNR do what they can, of course. There is a road safety campaign operating at the moment, to get people to drive slower, and the TV news reports the statistics each day as they show images of crushed and mangled cars. The worst thing is to see images of the bombeiros hosing down big pools of blood on the road, but it hardly seems to have any effect.
Mind you, bad driving is not limited to the daytime. Since today is a holiday, last night the bars will have been full of people drinking and getting in the mood for their long weekend. After necking umpteen beers, or whiskies, they'll think nothing of getting in their car and driving home - or to a club. At night the police set up checkpoints and give people random breath tests. Over the holiday season they adopt a zero tolerance policy to drink-driving, in an attempt to demonstrate it's a stupid thing to do, but driving while intoxicated seems a difficult habit to break in Portugal.
So if you’re going away this weekend, take care on the roads, enjoy the beach, and bom fim-de-semana.
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