Driving on the Left

The hard part of successfully driving in the UK may not be what you expect. It isn’t the problem of problem of remembering to drive on the left, it isn’t the problem of dealing with the roundabouts, it isn’t the problem of trying to work out the roadmaps or even trying to figure-out what all those damn symbols mean. You may be thinking it is all the time having the car to the left and you’d be close. It is hard to remember that you have your entire car to your left instead of to your right. This can be a problem with making left turns. Today I drove from Thames Ditton to Stonehenge. (More on this later…) I had a tendency to drift to the position (personally) in the lane I’d be occupying if I were on the left side of the car… but when you drive on the left this is the wrong place to be.

I did keep in mind to adjust and only a few times did I hit the curb when turning left. Fore the most part, I believe that I kept the car in the lane. And I had no major problem with the roundabout. So, what did I have a problem with? Remembering to reach to the left for the gear shift lever. The first time I got into my rental I nearly broke a finger trying to use my right-hand to reach for the shifter and try to shift. (It is not on the right in a British car, it is in the center – the driver’s left!)

Then there is the thing… you have trained your eye to look up and to the right to see the rear-view mirror, further to the right and lower to see outside the passenger side, and then low and to the left to see your side. The problem is that it is an inverse of this triangle you need to be making in a British car… We’ll see if tomorrow I do better. I am going to Brighton.