Driving in Britain

In the interest of public safety, that is to say my safety whilst I am in public, I have done a bit of extensive research into road signs and traffic laws in Britain.

In the US, when you rent a car, the rental agency will often give you a map. This map usually is not helpful in the sense that it seems to be entirely occupied with how to get from the car rental agency’s airport location to the agency’s fifteen other conveniently located locations. This is fine, if you happen to want to be at either the car rental agency counter or the airport for your entire trip (rather than it just seeming that way).

Some will also provide you with a pamphlet of some sort telling you the local driving regulations that you need to know to drive successfully in their locale. These can include the practical; such as if you are drunk and completely out of it and you are in eastern Tennessee it is okay for you to let your cousin and wife drive your car home provided she makes you lie in the back (so nobody can see you being driven home by a woman) and she doesn’t let you puke into your good boots. You may also learn the public safety laws like in the southern parts of Georgia, it is mandated by law that all pickup trucks be equipped with a huge slobbering bloodhound who allows his spit to be carried by the slipstream onto the windshields of any car following too closely.

So, since nobody told me what the laws were here, I have taken it upon myself to make sure that you know them when you visit. I have done exhaustive research* and will now present the meaning of all those obscure and strange (well to us foreigners) signs that you will see on the roads here.

So here goes:

In some parts of England there is a problem with young and inexperienced drivers so they want to make sure that anyone who gets behind the is at least forty years old.




Now, this one took me a while to suss. As it only seems to appear shortly before you reach a pub, I have figured-out that this means “Pints Ahead.”




So, by extension, I presume this one advises you of liters.





Ah, now this is a warning that you are following someone who has had too many pints and liters.





This is a friendly reminder to visitors from countries where they are not directly under British rule that they drive on the wrong side of the road here.

I believe the name for this sign is the “Drive to the left you idiot” sign.



I have no idea! I assume this is warning you that there are French Fries on the road ahead…





…so by extension this must be warning you that there are McDonald’s French Fries on the road ahead.





This is one you will see all over the place. They appear right before you come upon a roundabout. A roundabout is a strange street configuration that pushes all the roads in the city (and a few that are visiting from other towns) into a confused junction in the hopes that they will trap foreigners like flies in a pitcher plant.

The sign is an instruction as to the proper way to progress through the roundabout. Here is how you do that.

Rule number 1. Always go Clockwise around the roundabout. This is key.
Rule number 2. Always Yield (or as the British say "give way") to cars that are coming at you really fast through the roundabout.
Rule number 3. Always progress through the roundabout as fast as you can. (You'll need to to be missed by all the other cars tat are also progressing though at breakneck speed.
Rule number 4. (This is the most important rule.) It is absolutely mandatory that you go all the way around the roundabout at least twice (preferably shouting “Wee!” out the window as you go) before exiting the roundabout. (Try it! It's Fun!)

Don’t even try!

As foreigners, you and I have no more chance of deciphering this type of sign than we do of being elected King in the next election here. (They do elect the king, don't they? They must! I remember seeing it somewhere; "...supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses...)

These are what I have come to know as the “Abandon Hope” signs.Glance at it, and then pray that you exit at the right point. (But if you make it, it is probably just dumb luck.)

Oh, and for all their world famous manners here, this is, I am convinced what the British public works department are really trying to convey to you and me, the foreigners, by the use of all these signs:

Have a great day!

Don Bergquist - 01-March-2006 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, United Kingdom

* Editor’s Note:
By the use of the phrase “Exhaustive Research” in the above paragraph, I do not mean to imply in any way that said research was actually on the topic at hand. As the notes have made plain to anybody but the most dimwitted, the research in question was exhaustive on some other topic. Perhaps I will present that topic in some future blog entry. (Though I seriously doubt it. That would blow my entire fact-to-fiction ration that I endeavor to keep as low as possible.)

Any accidents you have whilst reading this blog or as a result of taking any of the content seriously are solely a result of your own woefully misguided trust in this as a purveyor of factual content. This blog is meant solely as a source of entertainment – mine… if you enjoy it too, that’s just a happy coincidence.

djb

** Editor’s Note Addendum:
Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while may recognize the content of this entry and may think to themselves that this is a repeat of an entry that I made in December of 2004. For those of you who think that is what this is: YOU'RE WRONG! The entry in December 2004 did not have this addendum, so there!

djb