But, despite a commendable craving for comfort, the average tourist still uses car rentals quite rarely. And the reason is not at all the price that has to be paid for this service so common in developed countries (prices are quite affordable), but solely unfamiliarity with the car rental procedure itself. Yet it is quite simple.
In the vast majority of countries, you are required to be over 21 but under 70 years old. In the UK, some companies set the age range from 25 to 75. In Australia, you can rent a car even if you are under 21, but you will have to pay about 15-20 percent more. As for documents, you will need a passport and a driver's license (Ukrainian or international). The only restriction is that your driving experience by the time of concluding the contract must be at least two years, and for drivers under 25 it increases by another year. Some countries only serve customers with a credit card, while most prefer cash and ask for a small deposit, which is returned in full. The rental price depends on the car class, the prestige of the rental company, and the rental duration – when concluding a contract for more than three days (which is often the minimum rental period), discounts come into effect.
For example, here are approximate car rental prices in Austria. In addition to the rental cost, you will have to pay about 6 euros per day for driver insurance and a road tax of 3.5 euros.
You receive the car - for example, a Hyundai Santa Fe - with a full tank, and you must return it with a full tank, otherwise you will have to pay a fine: about 12 euros plus the cost of the missing fuel. Note that renting a car at the airport will cost you 12-15 percent more. You will also have to pay extra for returning or picking up the car outside working hours (35-50 euros). Well, and of course, you need to drive carefully: if you turn out to be the culprit of an accident, you will be subject to a very considerable fine.
The services of small and little-known companies will cost about 15-20 percent less, but it is not worth taking the risk. There are frequent cases where, taking advantage of our tourists' incompetence, they try to provide cars in poor condition and without proper insurance.
How much can you drink before getting behind the wheel? For our motorists, such a question should not arise at all, since in our country the permitted blood alcohol level for a driver is still zero per mille. The situation is similar in former socialist countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. In most developed countries, however, you can drink and drive, but you just need to know the allowed limit in each country. After all, the punishment for drunk driving there is not comparable to ours: very high fines, confiscation of the car, and even imprisonment.
In Poland and Sweden, the permitted blood alcohol level for drivers is 20 per mille; in Germany, 30; in Holland, Greece, Norway, Portugal, and Finland, 50; in Austria, Belgium, the UK, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, France, and Switzerland, 80 per mille. Ireland leads the list with 100 per mille. But after drinking in a bar or restaurant, at a party or reception, no one does a rapid blood alcohol test. Therefore, it is useful to know that a glass of vodka gives a blood alcohol concentration of 100 per mille for an average-built man (80-90 kg). That is what you should go by. In other words, in a country where the limit is 80 per mille, a driver can allow themselves either a couple of glasses of light wine, or a portion of whisky and soda, or 1-1.5 liters of beer before a trip. But drinking, even within the established limit, before getting behind the wheel is still not advisable. After all, even if a driver has not exceeded the blood alcohol limit but has some road incident, they face more severe punishment than a completely sober person.