Backwards Driving
Although Ireland was like coming home in many ways, driving was not one of them. Ireland is part of the third of the world that drives on the left. You always hear about Ireland and the UK driving on the left, but I never realized so many people in the rest of the world joins them. Figures the United States drives on the right as another f.u. to the British.
Supposedly, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Transport offers this advice for visitors: “Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.” Right. That makes perfect sense. We did not heed this advice, so Sean’s practice consisted of taking a spin around the rental car company’s parking lot before heading out on the road.
Now, if we had followed the highway like we were supposed to, Sean’s introduction to driving on the left would have been relatively painless. Instead, we criss-crossed over the highway we were supposed to be on for an hour, before we realized that the map was incorrect. Hmm…there’s that M6 again. But where in the hell is the N6?
Because the lanes on the highway are separated, you don’t really realize you are driving on the left. Not so on the smaller roads. Most roads are almost exactly the width of two cars without any shoulder whatsoever, meaning that every time a car passed, brush on the side of the road actually poked through the windows on the left side of the car. Adding in the fact that it was periodically pouring, it was a fun introduction to driving on the left.
All of the drivers (Sean, Danielle and Tony) agreed that once you got used to driving on the left, it wasn’t such a big deal. But still, every once in a while, especially when making turns, someone would want to drive on the wrong side, leaving the rest of us urgently shouting, wrong way, wrong way!
No one ever fully figured out the insane amount of traffic circles. Like much of the rest of Europe, the Irish like to substitute these for traffic lights. Best I could tell, the driver just turns into the circle blindly and hopes for the best. More than once we made several rounds of the circle, trying to figure out which way to go, which inevitably lead to one of us saying, Look kids! Big Ben! Parliament!
Every once in a while, someone would have a revelation. Oh, I bet the passing lane is on the right! Or, Oh yeah! You can probably make a left on red! We never did figure out some of life’s mysteries, such as whether the Irish default to walking on the left on crowded sidewalks or grocery store aisles. There does not seem to be a national consensus on that one.
Very interesting. Don’t think that I could ever get the hang of it. Also, your earlier post was interesting about the Queen’s ban on microbrews. Say hello to Sean for me! Miss you guys!!!
I can’t believe you got a picture of me being tailed by the bus. I didn’t even see it because I was concentrating too hard on staying on the “right side” of the road. I was also looking for sheep. I think your blog needs to address “the sheep rules”.