Why

This week I have decided to 'hop' with the 'Expat blog hop' over at Tales from Windmill fields, this week's topic is 'Why'.  For this I have chosen to discuss one of my biggest annoyances and misunderstanding of algarvians / portuguese and that is the habit of walking in the road, despite the presence of a pavement.  I mean, Why?  At times taking their life in their hands, walking into oncoming traffic and causing vehicles to slow down to avoid them.  Some pavements here are cobbled and can be rough, therefore I can understand if a mother has a small or sleeping baby as this could cause some discomfort, but when a normal able bodied person chooses to walk on the road with traffic instead of on a perfectly good pavement, I just dont understand!

The main roads here normally do not have pavements but a side area which is lined off for cyclists and walkers, I found this very strange when I arrived, why do the roads not have pavements, I asked my husband, who couldnt really answer me as he come from the city of Lisbon, where they do have pavements and people use them or seriously risk their lives in high volume traffic.  Maybe it is just because there is not a lot of traffic here, so people dont worry about it, maybe its because some people here can be a bit ignorant and dont care about the others, some people seem to have an air of 'the world is mine, like there is no-one else around' so they dont have to care.  But it is something I question everytime and which I dont think I will ever understand.  Even the dog's poop on the pavements and the people walk in the road, what does that say?  Trust me, not that dogs are more important, with the number of strays here.  Why?!