Or, “We’re all going to die. Why did I let the English guy drive the car?”
In case you’re not aware, gentle reader, in the UK and Ireland, we drive on the other side of the road to the Continentals and indeed, you North Americans (although the Irish are messing about with their road signs, just to confuse people).
“So”? I hear you ask, “It can’t be too hard to swap can it?”
Nah, it’s a piece of piss: Driving on the wrong side of the road - as many of the regulars at the Rose & Crown back home often demonstrate - is dead easy. What’s tricky is driving on the wrong side of the car. Thankfully, the pedals are still “the right way around”, otherwise it would be nigh on impossible. After a while, you learn to change gear with your right hand as opposed to smacking your left hand into the door as you depress the clutch. And eventually (and I found this the trickiest) to judge where the passenger side of the car ended - think about it Britpeople - you suddenly have an extra yard and a half of car on your right-hand side.
I did make a couple of mistakes when I first got here, when turning left at large junctions with multiple entrance and exit lanes, but always late at night when I was tired and (thank God) there were no other cars about.
So. It’s easy then? Yeah. But now when I fly back to Britain and hire a car I end up saying “Ow!” as my right hand ends up bashing into the button on the door that opens the windows, rather than changing gear…..
Song playing as this was published: Billy Bragg- “The Space Race Is Over”
Exits from the M20 have signs part way down the slip roads reminding drivers to “drive on the left” in French, Dutch and German.
I’ve found that’s the dangerous moment when driving on the “wrong” side of the road, when you reach a normal road having been on a dual carrigeway and not needing to have consider such matters for a while.
Yeah, on the exit slip roads make sense, I find (now that I’m used to “driving foreign”) that after a long stretch on the motorway, it’s when I leave (and anyone who knows the Holmes Chapel exit of the M6 will vouch that it’s onto a tiny, wee road) that I could make a mistake.
Ha Ha…..I now what you mean. It took me ages to get used to driving here in Germany. Now I am all screwed up when I drive in the UK. Junctions are the worst, but the headon traffic normally gives me a clue.
Tell me about it. I’ve got the same problem. Just the other way around…