Culture. Horsecarts now banned, major roadways. Near Sighisoara.

Sighisoara Area Walled villages. Saxon? 

Horsecart, Romania, near Sighisoara

Horsecarts, wagons with auto wheels, are built with divided supports for flexibility front to back, and can carry whole families on board, goods, equipment. They are also on all the roads, including major highways, until we now read that they are banned from major roadways.

We never saw any accidents, even on the motorways.  The carts kept well to the side. There were only courteous drivers slowing up, going around, blinking lights if a cart happened to be in front, and that was the reason for the slow-up. So many of them - on main highways, everywhere. A rule for us was never drive after dark if we could help it - many carts had no reflectors, and no lights. In foggy areas, we crept.

There was a massive road-building program in progress, however. We were there in the fall, also, and that meant end-of-summer pothole filling in preparation for another winter. The best time to travel in Romania then was in the fall. Spring meant the new holes gaping out there, and worst for the horses. So, European Union aspirations mean big bucks for some, and a hindrance to an already marginal life for so many poor.

See the issue of those who prosper from their investments and properties, at the expense, again, of the peasant (andthe gypsy) who cannot get to their destinations in many cases, except by the major roads.  See  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E1DA1630F931A35752C1A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Horsecarts are now banned from major roadways. The funding is for the roads for the rich, and to draw in tourists;  not for the poor areas at this point: http://www.gadling.com/2007/11/20/the-death-of-an-anachronism-horse-carts-banned-from-romanian-ro/