I thought for a while about what other topic regarding Cyprus might be interesting. Then I realized that for a Russian person, the answer is quite obvious: driving.

So, let’s talk about what makes the driving experience different. By the time I moved to the sunny island, I already had over ten years of driving experience with a Belarusian driver’s license.

Is it difficult to get used to driving with a right-hand drive?

As it turns out, it’s still a surprise to many that in Cyprus, the steering wheel is “on the wrong side,” meaning it’s not like the rest of Europe. But then you realize—it’s a former British colony, so what’s there to be surprised about?

Personally, I was terrified the first time I had to get behind the wheel and drive. I rented a car right away, and they delivered it directly to me. But after that, I spent a few days nervously walking around the car, afraid to get in and go. Later, one evening, I took a short drive around my very quiet neighborhood, and the next morning, I even made it to the office. At the same time, I noticed that most of my colleagues didn’t have this fear—they just got in and drove off.

In fact, you quickly get used to the steering wheel being on the other side. While many people drive automatic cars, even driving a manual isn’t scary. It only took me 10-15 minutes of driving to get comfortable. Although, if you have the option, it’s easier not to retrain and just drive an automatic.

The slightly more difficult part at first is staying in your lane. When you’re on the road, you just follow the flow of traffic. But you have to be careful at intersections and think about which lane you’re turning into.

Roundabouts are also initially mind-boggling, but it’s actually simple since before each roundabout, the lanes are marked to show how the traffic is organized. You just need to get used to turning your head in the other direction before entering the roundabout.

Overall, you adapt quickly to everything. There’s just one thing that most people struggle with for a while, and that’s the sense of the car’s dimensions. At first, you just don’t feel where the left side of your car ends. People quickly get used to the steering wheel, start feeling like driving pros, and then end up hitting the left curb or scraping a pole on that side. And that’s if they’re lucky not to hit someone else’s car.

Driving features

Before Cyprus, I had a few years of driving experience on the roads of Germany and many more years in Belarus. So my comparison is based on those countries.

At one point, I used to think that the lanes on the main avenue in Minsk were narrow. In Cyprus, I realized they can be even narrower. On some roads, while there are technically two lanes, one of them can barely fit a car. And heaven forbid if there’s a bus next to you… Of course, this is more of a problem on older streets.

There are almost no pedestrians in Cyprus, and many streets don’t even have sidewalks. I assume this is due to the weather: when it’s 45°C outside in the summer, walking isn’t very appealing. As a result, the lack of pedestrians has greatly influenced the attitude towards them. There are very few pedestrian crossings, and even fewer with traffic lights. Once a pedestrian crosses the road, cars will start moving again, even if the pedestrian light is still red for them. If you wait, people behind you will start honking.

Speaking of honking, Cypriots do love to use their horn. But they mostly do it in one situation: if you take too long to move when it’s time to go. And in their view, “too long” is about one-third of a second after the light turns green. 😉

There’s also a popular joke in Cyprus that “the yellow light means speed up, and the red light means you can go as long as there’s no police.” It’s funny, but there’s a lot of truth in it. No one brakes for a yellow light, and even after the red light appears, 2-3 more cars might still go through. This is compensated by the fact that when the red light comes on, the perpendicular green light doesn’t turn on right away. Apparently, they know about those who love to drive through “pink lights.”

As for stop lines at traffic lights, most Cypriots have no idea what they are. They usually don’t care about them and stop wherever is most convenient for them, sometimes blocking those with a green light. The really bold ones will slowly “creep” forward and occasionally turn despite the red light. This drives me crazy, but it’s a fairly common practice.

Why is that, you ask? Because, in most cases, no one cares. If you need to turn right somewhere (remember, in Cyprus that means crossing the oncoming lane), you just stop and turn. Best case, you don’t interfere with others. Worst case, you think, “I don’t care.” Crossing double solid lines doesn’t bother anyone. Not even the police. They might even slow down and let you go—I’ve seen it happen.

Overall, driving here feels like “village driving.” People will pull out of side streets right in front of you without looking because they need to. But the important thing is that most drivers are not bothered by this. If you need to pull out, you do it, even if it blocks traffic for others. They’ll slow down, let you through, and move on. In fact, if you stand and wait patiently for a gap in traffic, that moment may never come. I’ve learned to pull out and block the road too. In Minsk, people would curse at me or worse, but in Cyprus, that’s just the normal driving style.

The same goes for traffic jams. You’re almost certain to be let through. If not by the first driver, then by the second. It’s quite pleasant.

Parking

It’s worth discussing parking separately. Proper, paved parking lots are usually the privilege of large supermarkets. And since there are only a handful of those, there aren’t many of such parking spaces either. Most other parking spots near restaurants or shops are just unpaved empty lots.

The majority of parking lots are paid. On average, the cost is 1-2 euros per hour, but most places charge 2-3 euros just for parking, after which you can stay as long as you like.

 Photo from the website http://www.newcyprusguide.com

The cost-cutting on parking doesn’t stop with the lack of asphalt. Most residential parking spaces are incredibly narrow. Sometimes so narrow that you wonder how people even manage to park there. Under my building, there are a couple of spots where parking is done using the “back-and-forth-twenty-times-and-feel-good” method. Why it’s like that, I have no idea. It seems like they just try to make the most of the available space since land is expensive. And while this might somehow be justified under apartment buildings, I don’t understand it when they build huge houses (and many people live in private homes) and leave a narrow driveway-parking space where one car barely fits, and you can only park a second by blocking the first one.

By the way, if you park your car near someone’s house and the owner doesn’t like it, the worst thing they’ll do to your car is raise the windshield wipers. In Cyprus, this is a sign of maximum “hatred” towards you.

Police and Violations

As far as I know, there is no distinction between regular police and traffic police in Cyprus. Perhaps this is related to the overall leniency police officers show toward drivers when it comes to enforcing traffic rules. Yes, sometimes they set up speed traps with radars or conduct periodic raids every six months, issuing fines for seatbelt violations or talking on the phone while driving. But in general, the police are not very visible. As I mentioned earlier, nobody seems to pay attention to solid lines. “Double solid line? What’s that?”

For violations, there are fines and/or penalty points. You get a total of 12 points, and any given points expire after three years. For major speeding violations, you can immediately lose three points.

I won’t go into detail about all the violations, but I will touch on speeding and parking.

You start getting penalized for speeding if you exceed the limit by 20%. So it’s not like Belarus, where “+10 over the speed limit” goes unpunished. It’s based on percentages here. If the highway limit is 100, you can go up to 120 without being stopped. But at 121, you’ll be pulled over. In the city, the official limit is 50, but many drive at 70, which is well beyond the 20% threshold.

The main issue with speed limits is outside populated areas. Officially, you can drive 80 km/h beyond the limits of a town or village, but it’s very rare to see a sign indicating the end of a populated area. So, you’re left guessing—am I still in a populated area, or not? Although many don’t bother guessing and just speed regardless.

The second type of violation is improper parking. And here, too, things aren’t so bad. Parking fines are rare, either because you’ve done something really outrageous or you’ve just been “unlucky.” Perhaps because of this leniency and the narrow streets in cities, people park however they want. Most ignore “no stopping/parking” signs, and some even park right on the curve of an intersection. On many streets in the city center, cars are parked on both sides so tightly that only one car can realistically pass through at a time.

Sometimes authorities will show up and issue fines as a demonstration, but near our office, in four years, this has only happened twice. The fine for parking in an unauthorized spot is 85 euros. However, if you park in a paid parking lot and don’t pay, the fine is just 8 euros. Considering the cost of parking (2-3 euros), it’s often cheaper not to pay (assuming it’s a machine and not a Cypriot attendant collecting fees). You could park for a month, get fined once a month for 8 euros, and still come out ahead. Otherwise, you’d be paying at least 2 euros daily.

There’s also a fine for talking on a mobile phone while driving, but I haven’t seen this really act as a deterrent. From what I’ve observed, about half of Cypriots are constantly chatting on their phones while driving.

Getting a Driver’s License

Let me tell you a bit about getting a driver’s license. Russians and Ukrainians can drive with their own licenses for six months before they are required to exchange them for Cypriot ones. It’s not just a simple exchange though: their original licenses are confiscated and sent back to their home country, and they receive Cypriot licenses in return. For Belarusians, it’s more complicated. First, you can only drive for one month, then you can’t drive at all for the next five months, after which you must take the test to obtain a Cypriot license. Second, you cannot exchange your license because some agreement wasn’t signed, so you essentially have to test like a beginner.

However, many people don’t bother with any of this and just continue driving with their original licenses. In four years, I’ve never been stopped, let alone had my license checked.

But as a law-abiding citizen, I decided to go ahead and get a Cypriot license. The exam, like in other countries, consists of a theory and practical test.

In Cyprus, there are no “rules” in the way we might understand them. There’s a traffic law, but that’s more for the police, not for ordinary citizens. Regular citizens just need to know traffic signs, road markings, and hand signals from a traffic officer. That’s all—this is the entire theory portion. Usually, in driving schools, they give you a guide with all of this information. The guide isn’t standardized though. In my case, it was “written” by the driving school owner, who actually just copied pictures and notes from other sources, because I saw the same ones in the UK. The traffic rules are similar.

Once you’ve read through the guide, you go to get what’s called a “learner’s license.” This license allows you to drive with an instructor while learning. To get it, you just need to pass the theory test, which covers knowledge of traffic signs, road markings, and hand signals. But before the test, they check your eyesight (no need for a medical certificate). The eyesight check goes like this: “Do you see that red car outside? Can you read its license plate? Great!” That’s it.

Next, the inspector points to signs, and you have to either name the sign or explain in your own words what you should do when you see it. That’s the entire theory test. My wife was even able to pass it in Russian because the inspector considered himself a Russian language expert. In fact, when she described a sign as “a sleeping cop,” it was accepted as a correct answer.

After that, you get your learner’s license and start driving with the instructor until they decide you’re ready for the practical test.

The practical exam is about a half-hour of driving around the city with the examiner, one-on-one. You just drive wherever they tell you. They might also ask you to perform one or more of three maneuvers: a three-point turn, a left reverse, or a right reverse.

The three-point turn is fairly straightforward; here’s how it’s done:

But the reverses are more fun. When my instructor first asked me to do one during training, I genuinely asked him if he was crazy.

Just take a look at these two maneuvers. The left reverse:

The right reverse:

So, in these maneuvers, the driver either has to reverse into a side street (left reverse) or even pull into the oncoming lane first and then reverse into the oncoming lane of the side street.

If I even tried to do something like this in Belarus, they’d probably take my license away for five years. But here, it’s part of the driving test.

The good news is that you only do it during the test, and then you can forget about it forever.

Overall, the test isn’t too difficult, especially if you already have driving experience.

You can take the test either in a manual car or an automatic. If you pass in an automatic, they’ll note it on your license, meaning you’re only allowed to drive automatic cars and not manual ones.

That’s probably the most important information about driving in Cyprus for now. If I remember anything else or if any questions come up, I’ll write a second post.