Ewan Morrison: 'Our politeness at the wheel is in radical contrast to the vulgarity of pedestrians'

LAST week on holiday in Mauritius, I witnessed the aftermath of a horrific road accident. A man lay on the tarmac clutching his skull, a trail of blood marking the 30 feet he'd been thrown from his crushed motorbike; a car with a smashed windscreen and four people, in shock, on their mobile phones. I worried that the man would die; my driver said this happens all the time.

Mauritius is reputed to have the highest number of road fatalities per capita in the world. It's not surprising. The roads are narrow and winding and bordered by precipitous drops into plantations of sugar cane, which grows so high it obscures the bends. Many locals drive mopeds without helmets; at night few use their lights; heavy farm equipment fights for dominance with slowly crawling tourist hire-cars; everyone is impatient to overtake on the blind bends.

It got me thinking about other places I've been and of the quality of driving as a measure of a culture.

Naples: a city of passionate madness, in which after dark it's an unwritten rule to ignore all red and green lights, in which traffic travels in four directions, not two, with people doing U-turns and eight-point turns, even reversing into oncoming traffic. It lends the famous appraisal of the city a new sinister meaning: "See Naples and die."

Then Sydney, in which the do-it-yourself, this-is-my-turf defiance of all that was once British rule and rules leads Aussies to drive at great speed with one hand ready at the horn and the other poised at the window to give the finger, instead of using indicators and mirrors or even the steering wheel. Dents in side doors are seen as being an indication of true Aussieness.

And the motorways near Frankfurt, where if you are not driving a BMW at top speed you are a road hazard.

I never thought I'd say this, but it makes me appreciate the civilised conduct of the Scottish driver. I don't know whether driving in Scotland is some embodiment of the Enlightenment philosophy of reason and tolerance towards one's fellow man (did Hume ever write a treatise on transit?). Or whether after decades of predominantly socialist rule, Scotland has become a driving dream of equality that even Lenin could not have imagined.

It has to be said, we Scots are exemplary diplomats behind the wheel: using our mirrors, letting others merge before us from the side lanes, waiting patiently before road works and in traffic jams, flashing our lights to say "You go first."

Visiting friends from abroad have remarked on this exemplary politeness, and how it is in radical contrast to the angry vulgarity of the Scottish pedestrian. How, on the Scottish streets, we bump into tourists, swear, eye them up and down to work out if they belong or not. Many visitors have run in fear from the racist, aggressively territorial stance of the turf-proud Scot.

Perhaps some natural law is at work. On the Mauritian streets, I have never come across a more hospitable people, but on the roads I fear for my life.

But in Scotland, in the midst of an angry xenophobic populace, it is possible to find peace, safety and communal care for one's fellow man when you are alone and behind the wheel – safely protected by a shield of shatterproof glass.