Driving in Yerevan

Driving in Yerevan is special.  There's not a ton of traffic here, but somehow it's still chaotic.  Unless of course you're driving on a Saturday morning before say, noon, when the whole city is still asleep.

A few observations:

A very popular expensive SUV 

Without exaggeration, I have seen more ridiculously expensive cars in Armenia than anywhere else I've lived.  There is a Bentley in our garage for crying out loud. (This is a country with an average per capita income of about $1200, by the way.)  If you own one of these expensive cars, you probably also have a license plate with repeating numbers on it. Those are very expensive and tell the world you're very cool.  Taken in combination, the expensive car and the expensive plate mean you can drive really, really fast, disregard all traffic rules, and generally act like an idiot on the road.  Many times I've glanced in the rearview mirror to see one of these cars bearing down on me, headlights flashing. I like to slow down when that happens so they can get a good look at my shiny red diplomatic plates :)

It is very difficult to turn left in Yerevan because many of the main thoroughfares are four or six lanes wide. So instead, you have to drive along until you reach a designated u-turn area.  The u-turn area is not usually an area per se, but rather a part of the lane where people just stop and make u-turns.  This causes all kinds of congestion and near wrecks.

Marshrutkas are the bane of my existence on the road.  Almost every day when I pull out of our street, I pull into the middle of three lanes.  Inevitably, a marshrutka will come whizzing along to my left...only to immediately cut me off and zip over to the far right lane to pick up passengers. Grrrr....

Jay walking seems to be a national extreme sport. Especially at night. On unlit streets. While wearing black clothes.

Lane markers are just guidance.  Really, traffic just moves in a swarm.  You usually need to beep when you're passing someone on the left because it's fairly normal for people to veer into neighboring lanes without looking. Usually the cars move in the same direction, but occasionally someone will drive backwards into traffic -- or if they're really important and in a really big hurry, will just drive into oncoming traffic, horn blaring and lights flashing.

Armenians are skilled at evading tickets.  Yerevan just installed a bunch of speed cameras and already people know where they are.  Today I was driving along a relatively busy street when all of a sudden the BMW in front of me slowed down (I almost hit it because its brake lights weren't working). About 1000 feet later I noticed the camera.  After the camera, zoooooooom.

There is absolutely no such thing as a relaxing Sunday drive in Yerevan.  A friend of mine said it well today, "I don't think I'll have to learn Japanese when I'm older in order to ward off Alzheimer's.  I'm pretty sure every time I get behind the wheel here I'm forming new synapses.  My brain is very alert."