Azerbaijan 

Driving in Azerbaijan

You can drive in Azerbaijan using a licence issued by an EU country or by using an International Driving Licence.

Care should be taken when driving in Azerbaijan (particularly at night). Many roads and are of poor quality and are badly lit. Many cars are poorly maintained, and the standard of driving is erratic. Most taxis do not have seat belts.

Drink driving laws are strict and there is a zero limit on drinking alcohol and driving.

Some roads in Azerbaijan are slow. Although paved, they are so bumpy that you can not exceed 35mph without risk of damaging your vehicle's suspension.

If you drive in Baku, you can notice evidence of infusion of oil money everywhere. Noticeable are: New fancy cars on bumpy inadequate roads.  Construction everywhere. Inadequate public services. New High-rise buildings in neighbourhoods with narrow and winding streets. Not unusual for the width of the street to change a few times along its course.   Discarded refuse in some places. Pollution. New luxury buildings near old Soviet-style dilapidated concrete blocks. Oil spills around the city. No telephone directory.

To find your destination in Baku (with no directory) you need to us taxi drives.

In Baku taxi drivers congregate and specialize in neighbourhoods. So, you get in a taxi and tell him what office you are trying to go. The driver goes to where taxi stands are and begins his quest. He asks the groups of drivers chatting next to their stations.

They talk and point to a direction. The taxi driver repeats the routine numerous times. Eventually, he (no women drivers were noted) narrows the search and finds the place. Once we learned this, I noticed that there was a constant exchange between taxi drivers for addresses. Some, it seemed, specialise in “their” territory.

It is not unusual for a driver to stop 5-6 times and ask for directions before arriving at your desired destination. After a while they internalize the information and collectively know where everything is and most notable people live! To be fair, due to influx of oil money, Baku is growing/changing at an incredibly fast rate and it would be very difficult keeping track of constant change of addresses and new phone assignments at such a fast rate of change!