Belgium to charge toll on their highways by 2008?!
by Arthur
Posted on Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 3:13 am CET
I don’t believe this; the Belgian government plans to start charging toll on all their highways from 1 January 2008. This would not be such a bad idea, if their highway system didn’t totally suck the way it does! I really think it’s one of the worst in Europe!
What’s the worst, if you ask me, is the signage on Belgian roads. It is absolutely dreadful! First of all, there is no consistency; the signs have lots of different fonts and colors. Also, they don’t take away old ones, so you’ll see a new shiny sign, and 20 meters behind that an older one with conflicting information! I’ve driven through Belgium many times on my way to France, but I keep managing to get lost. When there’s construction, for instance, don’t expect to see any detour signs. Once the ring of Antwerp was broken up and we, along with hundreds of other cars, got completely lost in the center of this big city. I’ve seen intersections where there is a sign pointing to a city one way, and another sign to the same city the other way — with no obvious difference between the two. It’s terrible!
I get so frustrated driving in Belgium — it’s a huge relief when you finally get to France when you’re going south, or the Netherlands when you’re going north; the roads are suddenly patch-free, there’re no potholes anymore and the signs finally make sense.
So it was a huge shock to read in the newspaper today that Belgium is actually planning to introduce a ‘vignet’ (a sticker that you have to buy to put on your windshield that allows you drive in Belgium for a certain period). So from 2008 we are going to have to pay to get lost and to break our cars on the bumpy Belgian roads. 🙁
Source: Wegenvignet in België komt er
I don’t believe this; the Belgian government plans to start charging toll on all their highways from 1 January 2008. This would not be such a bad idea, if their highway system didn’t totally suck the way it does! I really think it’s one of the worst in Europe!
What’s the worst, if you ask me, is the signage on Belgian roads. It is absolutely dreadful! First of all, there is no consistency; the signs have lots of different fonts and colors. Also, they don’t take away old ones, so you’ll see a new shiny sign, and 20 meters behind that an older one with conflicting information! I’ve driven through Belgium many times on my way to France, but I keep managing to get lost. When there’s construction, for instance, don’t expect to see any detour signs. Once the ring of Antwerp was broken up and we, along with hundreds of other cars, got completely lost in the center of this big city. I’ve seen intersections where there is a sign pointing to a city one way, and another sign to the same city the other way — with no obvious difference between the two. It’s terrible!
I get so frustrated driving in Belgium — it’s a huge relief when you finally get to France when you’re going south, or the Netherlands when you’re going north; the roads are suddenly patch-free, there’re no potholes anymore and the signs finally make sense.
So it was a huge shock to read in the newspaper today that Belgium is actually planning to introduce a ‘vignet’ (a sticker that you have to buy to put on your windshield that allows you drive in Belgium for a certain period). So from 2008 we are going to have to pay to get lost and to break our cars on the bumpy Belgian roads. 🙁
Source: Wegenvignet in België komt er