Sightings of right-hand-drive cars with Bulgarian licence plates are becoming all the more frequent. Sadly, however, along with local registration, they appear to have taken on the warrior spirit of Khan Krum, rather than some more genteel style of an England of Enid Blyton and the common sense of the Traffic Code.

How it is that there are so many cars, which tend to be 4x4s of middling vintage, generally Vauxhalls and such, is the subject of differing if not entirely unrelated explanations. The first is that they are being brought to Bulgaria in bulk, taking advantage of reduced tariffs and this country’s liberal laws on motor vehicle imports. The other, so far reflected in only one media report, and that in a not very reliable daily, is that they are the legacy of Brits who have quit the property market and taken wing from Bulgaria.

Not in doubt is that they are affordable, aiding demand even if the question of supply is disputed. Outside Plovdiv a few days ago, there was a 4x4 on sale – I could not guess its age – for 2600 leva. It is no wonder that there are so many of them, now bearing CA and PB plates, though I have seen quite a few still bearing their British markings.

There are just a few downsides. Running the gauntlet of pedestrian crossings, those zebra stripes that so many drivers appear to believe to be a right-of-way sign or an invitation to floor the accelerator, one of my practices is to try to make eye contact with the driver, in the hope of signalling them that it is a human being on whom they are bearing down relentlessly. It is somewhat disconcerting to look at the left-hand side of the car and see no one there.

I have found, however, that if they are passing in the right direction, with a window open, they are all that much closer to whatever insults or missiles I throw in vengeance for their flouting of the rules of the road, if that is not an oxymoron in Bulgaria; I suspect that the inspirational preamble to Bulgaria’s traffic act is an extract from the Live and Let Die theme song.

Naturally, it may occur to those of us who come from countries that drive on the left (much of the Commonwealth, and Japan too, among them) that it may be a touch of old times to take the wheel on the right-hand-side, especially at those prices. I am not sure how wise that is, and while I have driven right-hand and left-hand-drive cars, never have I done so on the matching side of the road. That dull practical consideration aside, it would seem something of a cop-out, as if we foreigners are not quite capable of adapting to all things foreign. For when in Rome, one must do as the Romans do, especially the charioteers with whirling blades on their wheels and reckless death in their eyes.