On January 1st, 2025, the long-awaited abolition of tolls on the Algarve’s A22 motorway took effect. While it was met with universal relief by those who had struggled to even work out how to pay the charge, Nirali Jackson looks back with nostalgia at the traffic-free highway.
@nomadicnili
Since 2011, I boasted quite a bit about my commute on the A22 to my family in Nairobi – where the traffic might as well have overtaken the population – honestly, if there was contraception to help manufacturers stop producing cars – this is the time they need to be shown how to use it. It is ludicrous how many are on the road, from Toronto, Bangkok, LA and London – you just can’t get away from the treacherous commute.
But here in the Algarve, on the A22 anyway, up until the 1st of January 2025, the road felt like mine. With no car insight on my numerous journeys from Monchique to Lagos over 10 years, I would have to double check with myself to see if I was awake as nothing on the road was challenging me to pay attention to anything. Autopilot was my mode, and if someone dared to enter from a junction, I would have internal road rage as if they had stepped into my house with their shoes on – yes, I am a no-shoes person in the house!
Then in January of 2025, suddenly, Tom, Dick and Harry, Jose, Pedro and João all decided that it was okay to join my lane. Paying attention hit me hard because not only did I have to remember what the actual give-way rules were or fast lane etiquette – remember, it was my road for mostly the last 14 years, now I had to manoeuvre my car around people who didn’t seem to understand the rules either.
When I first got to England in 1993, my brother-in-law taught me the ins and outs of British driving, and then he sent me to a driving school even though I already had my license. because after driving down a highway in Kenya and driving back up again, I obtained my beautiful book of freedom, aka ‘driving license’. At the time, this license could be swapped, no question asked, for a full UK license. It is fair to say that the DVLA did not know what they were dealing with and had not experienced Kenyan drivers!
After the driving instructor, who smoked too many pipes for me to see where I was going most of the time, gave me the all-clear, I would simply watch in awe as the British drivers sped in and out of lanes with grace and ease, letting drivers in and out, or flashing and swearing if someone was not a Tom and was more of a Dick. Ha!
After a few years on the road, I became a confident British driver and learnt the etiquette of roundabouts and motorways in Norwich, Bristol, and Manchester. London, for me, was another level, and I would start to get heart palpitations entering the M25 zone, so I left that to my partner, feeling defeated.
Then we moved to Portugal, 2008/9. Here in the Algarve, the unpredictability of the driver behind you, who seems like he or she was on some dodgem ride, bumping up to you as close as possible on every given straight or corner and then overtaking on a complete blind spot, even when there had been ample space to take over on the straight run, made navigating the M25 seem like a dream.
I am already grieving the loss of ‘my’ A22, but I am happy to have some spare change to lose somewhere in between the seats of my car rather than on the tolls.
Only a few weeks into sharing the A22 with far too many strangers, I feel that it may be safer to take the N125; at least there, you can guarantee someone will cut you up and know that people drive like maniacs; here on my quiet and serene road, I am not sure how to handle the changing of lanes when most people seem to think that the outside lane is for talking on their phones and the inside lane is to overtake the outside and that letting people in as they enter from the junction is a no, no, no matter what.
So be vigilant when getting onto the A22 and mindful of the grandmother/father, teenagers’ drunk drivers and tourists who share these lanes with you. I am now alert, awake, not concentrating on my podcasts on how to rule the world from my bed and other such things, my music is motivational and loud so that I can keep some attitude while manuvarung around the laggers. Conversations no longer exist – it could be a life-or-death situation after all.
Joking apart, the A22 toll closure should ease up the traffic on the N125 and allow more people to travel quicker and easier to places that they should have been able to before. It is a welcome relief not to have to pay for this, but be warned, you might be slammed with a speeding ticket as an alternative way for the authorities to make money.
My advice as a seasoned A22 driver is to start to actually use all your mirrors and indicators – does anyone know where this is situated in their car here in the Algarve? Quadruple-check all around you before switching lanes, and finally, keep your hand ready on the horn! And if you like staring at your phone while driving, this is no longer the road for you (neither is any other, btw!).
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