This one is for all you drivers on the roads of Ibiza who are not so familiar with our street conditions. And for the ones that tend to forget it…
As rain is something that is not so frequent on our island it is most important to know that, when it starts to rain, our roads are as slippery as it can get. I remember arriving to the island and, living on Vara de Rey, going to a supermarket to get something to drink and, crossing the road, i felt like i am on an ice rink. The bags with the bottles were flying high and i crashed on my bum and elbows before i could even think of what has just happened.
What is the reason for this? With the humidity and dust in the air this mix starts to stick to the ground without anybody noticing it as it is dry in daytime and even at night it does not get humid enough to notice it. It is like an almost invisible layer on the roads. But when it starts to rain all this gets wet and, especially in the forst moments, feels like you are ice skating.
Lucky you if it happens while walking, you ‘only’ fall down but imagine you drive a car and are used to different street conditions than these ones. It is almost impossible to break immediately and even driving a slight curve with a certain speed turns into a slippery nightmare. On top some of the older roads are still made with a different mixture of asphalt and stone to avoid that it moves at high temperatures in summer. The result is the asphalt sweats and the stones come to the surface, making it even more slippery. The newer asphalt has a different mixture and has a lot more grip. You can detect the old asphalt by its lighter colour, the newer is darker grey. My suggestion is when you drive and it starts to rain you try to break slightly with no other car around to see how the conditions are – when you notice that the car slips then please pay maximum attention, as well to the other drivers as they might not know about it either.
We chose the picture not for a special reason or to offend anybody but to show you how you do not want to end up for not knowing or not paying enough attention to our road conditions.
Have a safe ride.