Driving On The Left in England

<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><B><center> <table width=100%><tr><td> <h1>Driving On The Left in England</h1> </td><th align=right> <A HREF="http://durafix.com/?davep"><font size=1 face="arial">DuraFix - Aluminum<br><img src="http://durafix.com/bnr/df2.jpg" border=0 width=100 height=40 alt="welding aluminum welding with propane DuraFix"><br> Welding with Propane</font></a> </th><tr></table></center> <h3>Dave's English Driving Adventure</h3> <hr> <B>Driving on the left, from the right</B> from <I>The Vintage Triumph</I><P> <B>by Dave Podolske</I><P> <hr> <DT> <DD>In May of 1995 my wife Lanore and I went to England on our honeymoon. We chose England because we both had an interest in it for our own reasons. Lanore has a degree in costume design from DePaul University and I restored a Triumph Spitfire. We spent the first two days in London seeing the usual stuff. We rented a car to explore the countryside and stayed in Bed & Breakfasts.<P> <DD>I was excited about the opportunity to drive on the left side of the road from a right hand drive car. How hard could it be? After all, I had driven downtown in Chicago on the fourth of July. I have been on the New Jersey turnpike on a Labor Day weekend. Remember, every day I drive in the state of Illinois. I felt prepared.<P> <IMG SRC="gifs/right.jpg" WIDTH=279 HEIGHT=400 ALIGN=LEFT alt="driving on the left in England"> <DD>We picked up a Ford Fiesta from Hertz underground garage (rhymes with "carriage") in the middle of London, near Marble Arch. Printed on the receipt was a reminder to drive on the left. It felt much like the first time I got behind the wheel. Right off the bat I had to do a "Y" turn. Piece of cake!<P> <DD>The streets in London change names every few blocks. Actually they aren't so much blocks as segments of road going in random directions at every possible angle (other than 90 degrees). Compared to London, Waukesha has a neat, well-planned, orderly street layout.<P> <DD>Changing lanes was an adventure. After 15 years of driving, my brain is used to having the majority of the car on my right, which it did not forget easily. The bulk of the car was now on my left. The result was a sensation of being in the middle of a car twice as wide as normal.<P> <DD>On top of that the other drivers are completely at home with all this and zip around like any of us would on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. Except, I suspect, here in the US we are not busting a gut to get somewhere before "tea-time," more likely "happy-hour."<P> <DD>The plan was simple: a few easy left turns (remember that a left turn in England is as easy as a right turn in the States) and we would be on the M40 heading towards Stratford-Upon-Avon. Of course I must have made a few wrong turns because we immediately got lost. We ended up on Knightsbridge road which, we had been told earlier on a bus tour, was statistically the most dangerous stretch of road in London. To give you an idea of how lost we were just pull out a map of London and find Belgravia.<P> <DD>Fortunately Lanore managed to navigate us out of London.<P> <DD>The next challenge was the roundabouts. A roundabout is, as you might expect, a circular intersection of roads with entrances and exits around it's perimeter. The proper procedure is to stop at the entrance and then merge with the cars already going around clockwise. The handbook given to tourists breezily states: "Give way to the right at roundabouts." The exits tend to be marked not with the number of the road but with the name of the next town.<P> <DD>My first time through a roundabout was mighty scary because it is necessary to do two things: not get lost and not get killed. Again, the natives shoot through as if they live there or something. Once I got the hang of it I learned to appreciate the design. If, for example, a tourist doesn't know if they want the road to Banbury, Brackley or Steeple Aston they can just take another lap whilst their spouse studies the atlas. By the way, if you visit England be sure to get the Automobile Association Big Road Atlas. At 3-miles-to-1-inch scale it is invaluable when you need to make a quick choice between the roads to Kidlington, Bicester and Chipping Norton.<P> <DD>We visited the city of Bath during our vacation. Bath was laid out by some ancient Romans who didn't happen to have automobiles. The streets are very narrow and, in many places, there is not enough room for oncoming vehicles to pass without one pulling over to the side temporarily. The thought of getting a fender damaged by an oncoming truck was no less appealing than getting a wing spoilt by an oncoming lorry.<P> <DD>In Portsmouth I saw one brave soul tooling around in a left-hand drive car. That's got to really take some concentration.<P> <IMG SRC="gifs/bath.jpg" width=253 height=310 ALIGN=RIGHT alt="english left hand driving"> <DD>The bed and breakfast in Bath was located in a tight row of Edwardian stonebuilt houses. Being only about 60 years old, they were among the newest in town. The narrow driveway led to a tiny area in front of the owner's garage. Easy enough on arrival but when it was time to leave the next morning I had two choices: back out into heavy Bath traffic or somehow turn the car around. I chose the latter as I had faith in my ability to dust off those old parallel parking skills. This was, however, my first go at turning a right hand drive car 180 degrees. Even though the Fiesta is a small car the sensation of wideness phenomena was still in effect. I used my Better Judgment and had my wife spot for me so as to avoid running afoul of the neighbor's house.<P> <DD>We returned to London the day before we left to come home. After four days of experience under my belt in the rural part of England I figured I was ready to tackle city driving. Except for my tendency to confuse left and right, the journey was relaxed and quite smooth. We returned the car to Hertz completely intact.<P> <DD>Once we were home again I got back into my daily driver VW Jetta. I expected it to feel strange after 5 days of right side of the car, left side of the road motoring, but it wasn't. I guess it takes more than a week to erase one and a half decades of experience. Go figure.<P> <p><hr> <h5><i>The Vintage Triumph</i> is the newsletter of the Vintage Triumph Register, an international organization dedicated to the enjoyment and preservation of all Triumph cars. The Vintage Triumphs of Wisconsin is a local chapter of VTR.</h5> <center> <h5><A HREF="http://www3.fia.com/tourisme/info-pratic/lefthand.htm">Practical Information - Left-Hand Driving Countries</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.thewatts.net/capetown/fun/leftlane.html">Cape Town Mission: Left Lane Driving</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://alumni.cse.ucsc.edu/davidv/Driving.htm">Aussie Driving on the Left Side of the Road </A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.driving.co.uk/generald.htm">Driving On Line - UK Driving Test </a></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.driving.co.uk/bsmeham.htm">Driving On Line - BSM East Ham</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.japaninfo.org/driving.html ">Driving in Japan on the right</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.tourist-offices.org.uk/Sweden/travelfacts.html">Everything needed to know when traveling in and around Sweden</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.tssc-hq.demon.co.uk/TSSC.html">Triumph Sports Six Club</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.angserv.demon.co.uk/">Anglian Triumph</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.RimmerBros.co.uk/">Rimmer Bros - Triumph Garage UK</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.kipping.co.uk/">John Kipping</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.freepages.co.uk/bscs/">British Sports Car Spares - London</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.yahoo.co.uk/Regional/Countries/United_Kingdom/Business/Companies/Automotive/Dealers/Classic_Cars/">Classic Car Dealers - UK</h5> <h5><A HREF="http://www.vtr.org">Vintage Triumph Register</A></h5> <h5><A HREF="http://durafix.com/">Weld Aluminum, zinc, pot metal, white metal and all zinc alloys with Propane</font></a></h5> </center> </body>