Driving on the left

Drive on the Left

 

Have you ever done this before? My mother, sister and I just returned from a two-week trip to Scotland where we decided to rent a car to get around to maximize the area of the country we would see in that amount of time and offer the greatest flexibility with our schedule. That was a great idea once yours truly got the hang of it, which was about a week, - but it’s not for sissies. 

When I was planning our trip to Scotland I took several factors into consideration. Among them was, what do we want to see? Where do we want to go? What is our budget? And, at what pace do we want to travel? The answers to those questions pointed to the most flexibility in our schedule, and whether anyone was willing to drive.  Well, yes I was, given the fact that I had been in Scotland before and my husband drove. Not to be outdone, by golly if he could do it, I could. 

There are several things that make driving on the left-hand side of the road in the UK more than just a little disorienting, not the least of which is the fact that nearly everything ou do in the car is opposite what we are used to here in the states. The steering wheel is on the right side of the car, the rear view mirror, and the gear shift are to your left. I decided not to complicate matters more than they needed to be so I reserved an automatic. I’m glad I did. In the manual cars the shifting is exactly reversed so that 1st is up and away from you. Although the rear view mirror is in the same place it’s not easy to remember to look in a rear view mirror on your left. I thank God that the pedals were in the same place. That would have really fouled me up.  

Next is the fact that when you are driving on a two-lane road (aka, single carriageway), the line in the middle if there is one, is painted white. In the US, that indicates a one-way road – not so in the UK. If you make this mistake, it could be extremely detrimental, not to mention, fatal, and it is truly tempting. I only wandered into the right hand lane once and thank God we were driving out of a residential area. We were turning right and instinctively, I turned the car into the right hand lane and started watching for traffic. Unfortunately, none of my companions noticed anything out of the ordinary although they had been coached that it was their job to help me stay on the left. It wasn’t until I looked into my rear-view mirror that I realized I was in the wrong lane as the car that was behind me was in the left. After a startled explicative burst forth from my mouth, I backed up into the proper lane to make a right turn which is like a left turn here. I’m just grateful no one wanted to turn onto that street! 

A dual carriageway is one where the traffic is separated, or there are two lanes or more going in the same direction. Yes, that means passing on the right as the slow lane is the left lane. Parking is also interesting because it seems that it doesn’t matter in which direction they park their cars. On one side of the road there are cars facing each other. Apparently because parking is at a premium, when they see an open spot they just dive into it regardless of the direction the rest of the cars are facing or which direction you are coming from.  The roads, particularly the secondary ones, are very narrow and there is no shoulder. So, if you come up on a pedestrian, bike or other car parked on the side of the road, and there is oncoming traffic, you stop or slow down and wait until you can pass them safely. It appeared that the Scots are pretty cooperative when it comes to road obstacles. That is except the big trucks (lorries), or buses. They seem to be under the impression that they own the road but they are so big and often take up more than their share of the road, who’s going to argue?  You just need to get over as far left as you can. It helps to have a passenger who can tell you how much room you have if your left side distance  judgement is impaired. Many times I felt like Cameron Diaz in the movie “The Holiday” when she is in England, driving to the store and encounters a lorry.  She winces and closes her eyes, hoping they won’t crash. I did my share of wincing and ducking. Not sure what good that did but we didn’t have any accidents. 

The roundabouts are also an adventure and there is a system to it although it seems pretty chaotic at first. I have to say that the signage in Scotland, outside the cities, is great. You get many reminders about highway exits, speed changes, and which direction you need to go off the roundabout based on your destination. There were only a couple of times we had to go around more than once to get off at the right place. In general, you enter the roundabout based on where you are getting out.  So if you are getting out at the first or second exit you start the furthest to the left. If you are exiting at the last, or what would be essentially a right turn, you would enter at the far right lane and start on the inside working your way out to the preferred exit. On smaller roundabouts there may only be one lane entering.

 

The larger cities, however, are an entirely different story. My initiation into driving on the left side of the road came in one of Scotland’s largest and busiest cities, Edinburgh. When we mentioned that we were driving around Scotland to the hosts of our B and B’s, they would invariably be rather shocked then ask, “who is driving?” Like they could take one look at us and determine who was best or worst suited to the task? Or maybe they just wanted to know who to direct their sympathies to. I never did ask what they thought after volunteering that I was the one. No comments were made, hmm. Street name signs are non-existent at least the way we think of them on a pole at an intersection. Theirs, if there are any, are either up on the corner of a building, or down low at street level. I never did see the street level ones, but my cohorts verified they were there. It took many wrong turns and GPS recalculating directions to get us to and from points A and B. But we managed and I can honestly say it was a real adrenaline producing adventure. Who needs to jump off a bridge when you can just try to drive on the “wrong” side of the road in another country? It took three of us to successfully navigate the country but we did it  (I want to hear no comments about women drivers). One to drive, one to use the map and the GPS, and one to sit in the back and not panic. Prior to the trip I was sure that my mom would nearly have a heart attack witnessing what it was like to drive there, but no, she did great. Kudos to mom and Teresa for successfully accomplishing both assigned tasks.

 

Here are just a few recommendations before taking on driving in another country. Do a little research ahead of time so you know what the signage means and the rules of the road. Often times signs are just a symbol and if they’re not interpreted correctly, you could get into trouble. There are warning signs for almost everything you could encounter on the road. Among the ones we saw were; cows, deer, red squirrels, school children, pedestrians, low flying aircraft, and my personal favorite – elderly people. We heard there was one for otters too. Use a GPS. Ours was very valuable for getting out of the major cities we got lost in (it also helped us to get lost but that’s another rant). Just be sure that you have the most up to date maps or you rent a GPS with your car. Be sure to print out maps to places you want to find. In several instances the GPS was rendered useless because the places we were staying didn’t have addresses you could put into it. They would have a street name, followed by a town name, the shire, and a post code. Insufficient for navigation via GPS.

 

All in all it was a very successful trip. Nightly, I would have a glass of wine and toast my traveling partners in celebration of a days’ driving without hitting any of the aforementioned potential hazards, or another car, truck, or bus, and locating our destination. We saw 13 castles in 13 days, bagpipers, highland games, great antique shops, lots of absolutely gorgeous scenery, looked for “Nessie”, Rosslyn chapel, and met the most friendly people on the planet.

I will be writing more about this trip soon.   

Cheers!

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