Rented a car but didn't know how to drive
Sirrý Arnardóttir was stuck in traffic on her way from the airport because of a car whose driver did not know how to start a car. mbl.is/Kristinn
“Don’t you need to know how to drive to be able to rent a rental car?” asks the writer and media personality Sirrý Arnardóttir, always called Sirrý, in a Facebook entry after she and her family ran into a tourist who did not seem to know how to drive the vehicle he had rented.
Sirrý was on her way from Keflavík Airport when all traffic stopped because of a rental car that didn’t move. So her husband went out to investigate the matter.
"The taxi was full of Chinese tourists. The driver didn't know how to get the car started again. The car was a stick shift car and the man didn't know how to operate the gears, not how to handle the handbrake, not how to use direction indicator lights or the windshield wiper," she says.
mbl.is/Kristinn Magnússon
Doesn't know how to change gears
“Kristján, Sirrý’s husband, pointed out to him that he had the car in handbrake, he had to start the car, and that he had it in third gear and it wasn’t working. And then he taught him to put the car into first gear.”
The tourist’s car started to move, but it seems he didn’t know how to change gears. So the long convoy started slowly and the car could not be overtaken until long after.
Finally, she wonders how these tourists are going to be able to drive in Icelandic conditions.
“Now, these tourists are probably going to be touring around the country in January. How is this driver going to fare driving over single bridges, down the steep Kambar road to Hveragerði, or on slippery narrow mountain roads…? Is there really no need to demonstrate that you can actually drive a car before you can rent one in Iceland?”
