The size of Grand Cayman doesn’t intimidate you like fifty pounds of onions waiting to be finely diced for an Indian wedding that is taking place in the middle of summer. It’s not a mammoth hunk of island like Cuba, nor it is a little spit of mountain island jutting out of the Caribbean landscape like Saba.
The island has a sizable population of 65,000 inhabitants, roughly the same number of Walmarts you find in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dotted over the island may be 6 total stop lights. Transportation issues are just on a smaller scale.
You may encounter some stop and go 5:00 traffic, it may delay your morning commute by five minutes and your afternoon one by 20. Surprisingly enough, that 5:00 traffic lasts until at least 6:30 as people vie for three of the possible roads headed out east from George Town.
Driver tendencies span the aggressiveness specter. You grandmas inching down the road acting super cautious to young teenagers racing around blind corners with their bright lights . This leaves chickens in an uncomfortable position, they never know what to expect when crossing the road.
Being that the Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory, everyone drives on the left-hand side of the road and all vehicles move completely opposite from back home in the United States.
Yet there is one thing that makes life much more convenient on the road. It isn’t rum, actually, this could make life a bit more relaxing, but back to my point, roundabouts make life more commodious.
This is How You Do It
These well designed roundabouts allow traffic to flow like a river just pausing long enough to glide past brief roundabouts. It does require you to be able to use your blinker with proficiency and check both of your vehicle .
With roundabouts, you never have to idle longer than it takes the person in front of you to continue driving.
Roundabouts come in two sizes, large and small.
I do question myself at times, do people have the “right” away, or the left “away”?
P.S. I added a video to Ivan’s Salty Lemons
