March 26, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR NORRIE ROBBINS IN CA
If I remember correctly from driving in Ireland not too long ago, the pedals had the same functions as ours, but the wheel was on the other side. This meant it was easy to drive, but I found myself hitting the left curb every time I made a left turn. Someone told me that the car rental companies were kept busy putting new tires on the left sides of the rental cars because this was a universal problem.
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A: FROM MENTOR KRIS MOODY IN NH
In England and British colonies where cars drive on the left, it is
true that the steering wheel is on the right, but the rest of the controls
are the same as in the US where we drive on the right. If you travel to
one of these countries and drive a car, you'll find a few things that feel
kind of strange and take a while to get used to. For one thing, if you
drive a car with a manual transmission, the stick shift is still in the
center of the car between the driver and passenger seat. What that means
is you have to shift with your left hand. The other strange thing to get
used to is looking in the rear view mirror. It's surprising to learn how
trained we are to look up and to the right to check the mirror. If you do
this in England, you'll be looking the wrong way. It takes while to make
the transition and get used to it. The interesting thing is, or course,
that we can retrain ourselves with a little effort and practice.
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A: FROM MENTOR KELLY BROWN IN MO
Hi Ashley, I am a biologist and I did a postdoctoral fellowship in England,
so I have experience (some of it pretty exciting!) driving in that country.
In England, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car, and they
drive on the left side of the road (otherwise it would be VERY hard to pass
a car that is ahead of you on a two-way road, because you couldn’t see
around the car to determine if there is on coming traffic). The feet
however, remain the same: the right foot does the brake and gas. Another
difference is that the manual shift car is much more popular than the
automatic shift cars that are very common in the US. That means, your left
foot has to work the clutch and your LEFT arm has to work the stick shift
(unlike in the US, where your right arm is used to work the stick shift on a
manual shift car). One more difference that you don't see in the US, is
that the cars in England sometimes have a manual choke, which in my car was
located under the steering wheel, just to the left. I had to pull it out a
little bit before I started the car (not too much, or the car would stall)
and then push it back in once the car was moving. If the car had been
sitting around for a few days without being driven, then I had to pull the
manual choke out farther to get the car started.