Left is Right - Driving in the UK (by David)

Scenes like this are common place by car
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June 20 - July 2, 2006

“Left is right!” exclaimed my navigator Stephanie from the backseat as we circled the roundabout in our rented car. That really summarizes the driving experience in the UK; everything is backwards in terms of left and right. After getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road (with a fender bender thrown in for educational experience), I have observed major differences in terms of driving in the UK versus North America.

The countryside is wonderful to travel by car

Our trusty steed with the bent fender
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In general, I noticed that almost all the drivers here are very competent drivers. I guess you have to be in order to navigate some of their B roads which in parts only are wide enough to allow one vehicle at a time to go through. It is also this type of driving that has bred very courteous drivers; one needs to pull over at times to let others through. This is also evident on the motor speed ways (the M roads) where the slow drivers keep to the left (curb) lane and let the faster drivers go through on the right side. At no time did I observe any slow pokes in the fast lanes (imagine that in N. America). One really amazing observation was that people didn’t even rubber neck at a traffic incident with emergency vehicles at the side of the highway. In N. America, this would have been at least the cause of a 30 minutes backup in traffic. People kept driving by without slowing down to look. Amazing!!

A car you wouldn't see in N. America
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We also notice that people do not typically drive gas guzzlers here. With the price of petrol (gas) or diesel at around £1 per liter, you cannot really afford to drive those around. Our rental car was a diesel and it took around £50 ($100 Cdn) to fill up. However, each tankful of diesel took us 500 miles or 800 kilometers between fillips. We were able to drive the whole week (over 1000 miles) on two tanks of gas. I wonder why we N. Americans do not drive more diesel vehicles.

The countryside is wonderful to travel by car. The scenery is wonderful and the roads are nice and curvy for exercising one’s driving skills. I would recommend it to others to see the country by car if possible. You can get to places that are out of the way and perhaps not so touristy.

There are some need cars too that we do not see in N. America – Lotus, Alpha Romeos, Renaults, Peugeots, and antique cars on the roads.

Back to the left is right scenario. Stephanie and Karsten have been doing the bulk of the navigating using a GPS attached to our laptop. With it, we have been able to find our way in all situations and even when we get lost, we can extricate ourselves from those situations. Steff and Karsten have been really helpful in getting us around the UK. I would recommend a GPS to those considering touring by car.

All in all, driving in the UK has been a blast and we had a wonderful time doing this tour.