Welcome to Dej.
This quaint little town in Romania used to be ruled over by a Mister Nicolae Ceaușescu . It appears that he was a lot smarter than the current and recent administrations.
They are currently riding on an E.U. gravy train that has transformed Dej from resembling Kazakstan only ten years ago to resembling modern Kazakstan. The new Borat film will soon appear on Netflix to prove my point.
Dej discovered that people outside Romania drove around in early twenty first century cars. They imported the second cars that other nations wanted to replace quickly. Many of these cars lie parked in Dej , going nowhere. A fine example is the Opel cabriolet blocking the footpath on Horea Street for many years.
In Dej, the people from kindergarten to nearly deceased walk on the road while their neighbors cars occupy the footpaths. The E.U. has paid for two new footpath schemes that facilitate cars to replace people on the stretch of Dej called a FOOTPATH ( A place designed or utilised solely by pedestrians). A PEDESTRIAN ( person who walks on a footpath) from Dej buys a car and instantly forgets that footpaths are for pedestrians.
There are many driving instructors operating in Dej, they too park on the footpaths. So what are they teaching their pupils.
The new road makeover from Dej to Ocna has a footpath. It will be in the Guinness Book of Records for the crazy layout of the footpath. It is, for the most part, unusable and should not be used.
I invite the current administration to walk to Ocna on this expensive rollercoaster that will have people from all over the World visiting shortly. I suspect Borat will film his next movie there.
If you are visiting Dej, look at the new footpath on Unirii Street. It has a World First, yes kerbs designed to attract cars to park on the pavement usually maintained for pedestrian safety.
The kerbs are no taller than a matchbox so when you are forced to walk in the gutter, there is no gutter and there is nothing to stop a wayward vehicle from sending you to an untimely funeral.
Will the designers and the administrators be accused of manslaughter or are they guilty of total stupidity on a grand E.U. funded scale.
The most dangerous place in Dej to cross the road is the official crosswalks or Zebra crossings. In Dej and across Romania people block the sightlines approaching crosswalks by parking right beside the Zebras. It should come as no surprise that Zebras are smarter than Romanians when it comes to survival. A Zebra visiting Dej today would leave town immediately on arrival, and would tell all other zebras to avoid it.
At the moment, one car in five does not stop completely when there is someone on the crossing. Maybe motorists consider it dangerous to stop, their car might be hijacked and sold to a History Museum or God forbid, show up in a Borat movie.
What happens when E.U. decides that all the Diesel and Petrol cars have to be replaced by Electric cars. Dej will become the nations boneyard. The pedestrians will have the last laugh.
