Renting a Car
租车
Everyone’s familiar with renting. You get off a plane, go to the rental
counter, hand over your credit card and then fill out numerous forms until
they hand you the keys. Reserving in advance cuts down on some of the
paperwork.
每个人对于租车都很熟悉。下了飞机之后,径直来到租赁柜台,递交你的信用卡,填写一大堆表格,最后他们递给你车钥匙。提前预定的话能够减少一些填写表格的程序。
Things to watch out for when renting:
租车时需要注意以下事项:
You’ll probably want the Collision Damage Waiver (CDW). It’s
insurance that covers the high deductable that the normal insurance comes
with. Used to be that some Gold Cards covered this cost, but you’ll really
need to check, since some have stopped offering that service. You might
check your own insurance policy as well for coverage.
你很可能需要接受撞车车损放弃索赔协议(〈collision damage waiver又称Loss Damage Waiver〉简写是 L.D.W. 或C.D.W,主要保租车的损毁或失窃(车身碰撞险))。普通保险服务能提供这项高减免额的保单。曾经有一些金卡涵盖这项服务,但你仍需要核对一下,因为某些金卡已停止了这项服务。对于保险总额,你也需要检查你自己的保险条款。
The rates quoted in advertisements seldom include all the costs
you’ll incure in renting a car–there are many hidden costs, such as having
more than one driver. Plan where you’ll drive your car, then get a final,
all-inclusive quote before you compare the costs to leasing.
广告中开出的价钱很少能覆盖完你租车所带来的全部开支。通常都会有许多藏成本,比如有不止一位驾驶员。在比较租车费用之前,计划一下在哪里驾驶自备车,然后确定一个包括所有费用的最终报价。
It often costs more to rent from an airport, because the airports
charge the rental companies to run their businesses there. If you land in a
big city, and want to explore that city–why not spend time there and rent
the car when you’re ready to leave town?
通常在机场租车会更贵,因为机场会向在那里开办业务的租赁公司收取费用。如果你到了个大城市并想在游览这座城市,为什么不在这里停留一下并在准备好离开的时侯在租车呢?
Reserve the car in the U.S. You’ll often get a better rate than you
might as a walk-up and you’ll get peace of mind as well.
在美国要预定车辆,通常你能得到更便宜的价格,并且你也不必匆忙。直接去找租赁公司。
Driving in Europe
在欧洲驾车
Some people are terrified of the very thought of driving in Europe,
especially–mamma mia!–in Italy. This fear has been going on for
centuries. Honestly-there are accounts of people terrified of Italian horse
and buggy drivers and things don’t seem to have changed a whole lot since.
有些人一想到在欧洲开车就变得非常害怕,尤其是-妈妈米呀-在意大利。这种恐惧由来已久。坦白地说,人们害怕意大利的马和马夫以及几个世纪来好像都没有变化的事物,关于这些的记载有很多。
While it’s probably wrong to generalize, I’m going to take a crack at it
anyway. Europeans, by and large, drive more aggressively but pay more
attention to the road than Americans. Personally, I like this because you
can safely figure that the guy in the red Ferrarri is going to race you for
the 7 feet you’ve left between you and the BMW ahead of you, and you’ll be
right at least 99 percent of the time. Knowing what people are likely to do
is half the battle toward automotive safety. The rest is driving skill and
paying attention. (In contrast to the above, and as explanation to our
European readers of the sometimes bizarre behaviors one sometimes
encounters on American roads, I point the gentle reader toward an
absolutely hideous movie called L.A. Story, in which 4 drivers pull up to a
four-way stop, motion each other to go, and then all crash into each other.
In short, European drivers rush to take their right of way, even if they
have to take it from someone else, and Americans rush to give it up when
they’re not in a hurry–unless they’re going slowly in the left lane of the
freeway of course.)
虽然笼统概括通常有误,不管怎样,我还是准备尝试一下。总得来说,比起老美欧洲人开车较为迅猛但也较为关注路况。个人来讲,我喜欢这一点,因为你可以安全地计算出在你的车与前方的宝马车距在7英尺的时侯,那个开红色法拉力的家伙会超你的车,并且结果基本如此。了解人们趋向于做什么,对于驾车安全就有了一半的把握。剩下的就是驾驶技术和专心程度了。(为了与上面的例子做一个比较,同时向欧洲的读者说明有时在美国公路上会遇到的古怪行为,我要向温和的读者们提到的是一部绝对可怕的影片L.A. Story,在影片中4位驾驶员开到一个十字路口停下(four-way stop一般是在一个不大的十字路口,放上红绿灯不经济,就在四个方向放上stop的牌子。每辆车到路口时都要先停一下,然后按照先来后到通行。),相互向他人示意让对方先过,结果相互撞成一堆。简而言之,欧洲驾驶员急匆匆地占道,既使这意味着他们要从他人那儿抢道,而只要不是赶时间的话,美国驾驶员急忙让道,除非他们慢腾腾地开在高速公路的左车道上。)
Europeans driving on the autobahns and autostrade, as already noted, tend
to do most of their driving in the right lane, using the left one only to
pass (except, of course, in Britain, which is a special case entirely.) The
person in the left lane isn’t likely to enforce his arbitrarily chosen
version of the speed limit on you, even if he’s going 200 km/hour. Chances
are, he’ll move over to let you pass, a courtesy infrequently extended to
fellow drivers here in the US.
正如已经提到的那样,在高速公路上驾车的欧洲人倾向于在右车道上驾驶,空出左车道专门用于超车(当然,除了在英国,这完全是个特例)。在左车道上驾驶的人不大可能将自己任意选择的速度限制强加于你,既使他开车的时速达到每小时200公里。他很可能会让开给你超车,这是在美国驾驶员中难得一见的礼仪。
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