Even before coming here, I read about Turkish driving. “Crazy!” one source said. “Dangerous!” said another. From everything I’ve seen, Yes and Yes. Even the legendary traveller and investor Jim Rogers, in his excellent book Adventure Capitalist, makes mention of this phenomenon.

Most charitably put, Turkish driving is an art form. There are some rules, but mostly you are left to your imagination, guile, and courage in driving a vehicle. With those parameters in mind, Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic was only slightly less treacherous than the four of us taking a taxi to Ayvalik. The roads are, at best, two lanes, but the Turks treat them as six. Cars, mopeds and motorcycles were weaving in and out at high speeds amongst each other. Speeding in close quarters. Near misses. No look passing. Passing on the right. Motorcycles passing between cars. Passing so close you can touch their mirrors. And door handles. Traffic that makes Hall Road at home seem relaxing. Parking? Wherever you can fit your car, and even then not all the way.

The same goes with the many motor scooters and motorcycles used here. They are not used for pleasure riding as in the U.S., but (with gas at $15 per gallon) a cheaper, practical way of transportation. I saw one guy with his entire family – wife, one toddler and one infant- and himself on a scooter. In the above described traffic, mind you. I have not seen, nor heard of, any type of traffic enforcement here. If there were traffic cops here, they would be severely underpaid for the task before them.

Tanya, Tamer’s sister and an expatriate living here, said that the reckless style of driving is the result of an attitude the Turks have: If it’s your time to go, so be it. That’s God’s will and that’s the last of it. Me? I will take my chances using a little prudence on the road. Tamer also opined that driving is the most stressful part of any trip here, and he tries to avoid it, and with good reason: Last year, his parents were in a bad crash, caused by a reckless driver.

As I am the fifth wheel on this trip, I am most often in the front seat when a relative picks us up. Thus, I have a front row seat to this chaos. Once, when putting on my seatbelt (and wishing for another), one relative said to me that I didn’t need a seatbelt.  I replied with a polite “bullshit” under my breath and a smile. He later passed a car on the left in a blind curve with another barreling down on us from the opposite way. Thankfully, we made it.

Turks seems to accept this survival of the fittest as a fact of life. For me, it’s an excellent moment of perspective. While I do take my chances every now and then on the road (I do ride motorcycles, after all) unlike the Turks, I will be happy to stave off my eventual demise as much as possible.