About driving here in England

We all know that the people of all the British Isles drive on the wrong side of the road! Coming from America and learning how to drive on the wrong side of the road is not just learning to drive on the wrong side of the road. You also have to learn how to do everything in the car with the opposite hand that you've always used when driving in America - or any other country [excepting most of the Commonwealth].

Driving on the wrong side of the car helps to some degree in getting you to drive on the proper side of the road - I say proper only in the sense that to drive on the side of the road that God intended for us to drive on will quickly get you killed over here. :-) There are still times that more than 30 years of my driving habits have given all of us quite some scares. LOL And I still keep looking for the rear view or side view mirrors in the wrong places. Or maybe I should say that I look for them where they are supposed to be according to the ways of the rest of the universe and where God put them, only to find that the British have other ideas about where to put these most useful items.

You have to learn how to shift with your left hand. The shift patterns are the same, but it just ain't the same when you have to do it with your left hand. When I first started learning, I expected 1st gear to be nearest my thigh and 5th to be the furtherest away. It ain't so. 1st gear is in the same place where it is everywhere else in the world. Fortunately, all the pedals are in their normal position. Same with all the radio controls. I have to lean way over to reach the volume knob on the radio. After a while, you get used to everything, but the radio controls are still giving me trouble.

Another thing you have to get used to is that streets are not labeled very well over here. Most times, there is a street sign posted somewhere either up on a house on that corner or on a low fence - and can only be read if you are traveling from one direction. God help you if you are coming the other way! Many times, you have to search the whole side of the building for the street sign to figure out if it is the one you are hunting. And if you have a bunch of drivers behind you who are annoyed with your slow driving, you're gonna get some nasty looks, hand-signs or horns blown at you as you finally turn off.

Having said all that, now let me say some things about what they do right over here. At the end of any street in America, you are required to come to a complete stop before moving on, even if there are no other cars in sight in any direction. Here, at a street junction, they have a Yield trangle painted in the lane you are driving in, indicating that all you need do is yield to on going traffic coming from either way. If there is no one about, just slow down enough to make sure and then go on your merry way. You can bet that this saves a lot on fuel mileage because it burns more fuel to start a car from a dead stop than it does to accelerate from a slow roll. And when fuel costs anywhere from $8 to $9 per gallon [US] over here, every little bit helps!!!

Another innovation I like, once I got used to them, are the roundabouts. When ever they can, instead of having major traffic signals regulating very busy intersections, they have roundabouts where you simply move out into the roundabout when traffic to your right permits and go around to the street you need to continue on. Even at small intersections, this works very well. Roundabouts allow vast volumes of traffic to make their way through intersections at a much faster pace than traffic signals do! Once you get used to them, they are simply fantastic!

All in all, I am looking forward to seeing how my adjustments to all these new driving habits are going to affect me when I do get a chance to go back home to Georgia. Maybe I'll just take up the habit of some people both here and in America and take the middle half of the road instead of having to choose which half I'm supposed to take. LOL