Yeah, it was the A30 that I was remembering. I thought it was what we would call “limited access” in the US (no intersections, just on and off ramps) in sections, but looking at Google maps those were just entrances and exits from rest areas (laybys?) along stretches with few intersections.
Aside: Are only the highways labeled “Mxxx” called motorways? So motorway would be equivalent to the US “Interstate” rather than “expressway” or “freeway”.
Just stay away from Swindon.
Even the simplest compound roundabout (two of the little “dot” roundabouts) threw me for a loop (pun intended). Fortunately the first one I came across the road was empty so I just drove right over the dots…
There are also A-roads that are motorways, which are suffixed with an “(M)” where motorway rules apply.
To clarify:
Motorways (prefixed M, blue road signs) have definite specifications - hard shoulder, central reservation, access only via slip roads (no traffic lights), no bicycles.
An “A” prefix (dark green road signs) says only that a road is a principal route, but has no other specifications or restrictions - it may be as wide as a motorway, or in rural areas it may be quite a small road.
A few A roads such as the A1(M) north of London have been upgraded to motorway status (and all the specifications and restrictions that go with that) by adding a suffix rather than renaming them with an M prefix, presumably to avoid confusion through the renaming, or because only part of the road may have motorway status.
Yes, M25 or whatever means motorway. They have different rules, like you can’t go on motorways on a horse, cycle or tractor, like you can on A roads. But they blend into each other enough that it might be hard to tell.
There are motorways, labelled M, and A roads, labelled A, which don’t have any better name. They’re just A roads. But A roads can be two-lane roads that look really small, and go into residential areas, or they can be four lanes wide (or more, I think). Oxford Street is a A road, part of the A40, and Oxford St is mostly a narrow two-lane road in the centre of London, though sometimes it gets wider even in London. I don’t think it would seem to any US driver like an expressway or freeway when it’s in Soho but when it gets further out, it might.
The US terms don’t exactly overlap.
(I don’t drive but I pay attention).
Starting out your driving experience in Cornwall is definitely getting in at the deep end!
5 minutes for me (switching the other way from the OP - from UK to continental Europe).
The tricky part is not really the operation of the vehicle or remembering to stay on the correct side of the road.
The tricky part is dealing with unfamiliar things such as traffic signals that look or behave, or are placed differently; navigating unfamiliar types of junction; interpreting road markings and signs.
Get a good satnav and use it even on short journeys at first, then you don’t have to worry so much about the signs, the lane control and where you’re heading.
I only had one issue when I started driving in Japan. I looked the wrong way when crossing traffic and luckily the woman driving the other car was paying attention. She stopped just short of colliding with my passenger-side (left-hand side) door. This was about a week after I’d moved to Japan.
I’d forgotten about this! This was about the only problem. Usually this was on my way back and forth to work, so I was able to elegantly hide my embarrassing error by placing my laptop bag in the passenger seat before walking to the proper side of the car.
Be careful with that. You should only signal right if you are taking the right exit. If going straight on you don’t signal on approach,you stay in the left lane (unless all the cars in the left lane are turning left) then signal left after you pass the exit before yours.
Wait, what?! I’ve never seen anyone do this, at least not here in Boston.
I drove in Australia for a while. Took some getting used to, but I managed to survive.
I’ve driven in Ireland, Scotland, and England a number of times. I’ve never really had a problem driving there. The first real problem I had was remembering who had right of way, which was backwards from the States, but that only took someone honking at me from a roundabout to figure it out.
That said, the hardest thing for me was backing up, it was really hard for me to try and figure out. Backing in to some spots was a pain to impossible, I’m glad I never had to reverse on one of those small roads.
It’s not really that hard to figure out, especially on the roads as if you’re on the wrong side you’re going to notice really quickly. The only times I really had to think about it was in the parking lots and sometimes when there wasn’t any traffic pulling out on to the roads, but even those you notice right away.
Oh, one more thing.
Parking can be kind of weird, at least in my experience in Scotland and Ireland.
In the US, if you’re driving along a two-way street, looking for parking, and you see a spot on your side of the street, you can scoot right in and park there, no problem. If you see a spot on the other side of the (two-way) street, you have to make a U-turn and come back to it. You can only park facing in the direction of traffic on that side of the street.
Not so in Scotland or Ireland (although the rules may be different in England or Wales – I’ve never tried to park there). If you see a spot on the other side of the street, just park there. No U-turn. You will feel strange parking with your headlights facing the headlights of the car parked in front of you. Don’t worry about it. Apparently, that’s fine. Everyone does it.
Two points:
Do you really need a car? Look athttp://www.seat61.com , http://www.nationalrail.co.uk,, and http://www.traveline.info for the public transport alternatives.
If you do opt for a car, please, PLEASE, do NOT try to drive a car straight off a transatlantic flight, what with jetlag and all.
And do familiarise yourself with the Highway Code in advance, as suggested above: there may be many traffic rules different from what you’re used to.
Thank you for all these suggestions. We’re heading there next week and this has been extremely timely!
Pretty much, but the Highway Code, which is applicable to England, Scotland and Wales, states in rule 248:
So if it’s during the day, and/or in a marked parking bay you’ll be OK. Otherwise you’re liable for a £1000 fine. Never heard of anyone being “done” for this, admittedly.
The Highway Code is available here if you want to know all the official rules and regs.
Re: Traffic circles aka roteries. No you are not suppose to stop in the US, you suppose to yield right of way to others (in the circle as you enter). What you are seeing is people using them correctly - you are messing it up as you stop for no reason. Only if there is a traffic control sign or light indicating such are you supposed to stop. :smack:
Many, many good anecdotes here. And I’ll just chime in my 2 cents.
It is easy as pie to just get off the plane/boat and drive away on the left hand side. Never had a problem with it - in UK, Ireland, NZ, Aus, but did have some more harrowing experiences with it on the narrower less regulated roads in Africa where people drive in the middle until they get close so had to keep chanting to myself, “go left, go left, go left” to make sure I didn’t knee-jerk it to the right.
But the one motion that I’ve always had the most trouble with are left hand turns. I almost always still turn too wide when taking a left. It is just a quick left but I often have a hard time overcoming muscle memory and take a wider left coming out of intersections but more commonly parking lots, side streets, etc. Just remember TIGHT LEFT.
It helps if you have someone with you to just also remind you getting into a car or approaching a new traffic event to “stay on the left”. One drives and the other makes sure you drive on the left.
I didn’t have a problem with it for the most part, but I thought of the driving in relative terms: the driver is in the middle of the road so with me behind the wheel, I just needed to make sure I stayed near the center line without going over it.
I only had two problems. My biggest problem was with right turns - in the U.S. this is a short turn, so you only have to look one way. But in the U.K. this is a long turn, so you have to make sure no traffic is coming from either way. I missed this a time or two. I turned into the correct lane, but there was someone that nearly ran into me that I missed seeing. Come to think of it, that might also have been a problem with left turns if I wasn’t registering that I would need to be going fast enough to get ahead of that person coming at me before he got there.
Fortunately, 99.9% of the intersections in the U.K. are roundabouts, or I would have probably gotten into an accident from one of these.
Also, since I got a manual transmission car, I would grab the window handle instead of the gear shift when I had to shift quickly. Oops!
I have a bit of trouble on return to Aus. The first change – to driving on the other side of the road – doesn’t cause any problem. But the second change – going back to the original side – is a bit tricky. I’ve always been a bit left-right challenged, and the second shift overloads my meagre mental capacity.
And in the same vein, I talked with an Australian woman who’d just come back from a holiday trip in another Australian state. She was used to getting on a plane, flying to Hawaii, driving on the Right, then coming back to Melbourne and driving on the Left. Getting on a plane, flying to a tropical holiday destination where they drive on the Left, caused her more (slight) confusion then driving in Hawaii ever had.
(And we have lots of roundabouts. Signal on Entry. Most of our roundabouts are too small to give you time for signalling on exit, and even on the big ones we aren’t required to do so.)