This is often on the mind of many an American I know who are planning to rent self-operated vehicles in the UK and Ireland for a vacation trip, the mental stress of dealing with “driving on the wrong side”. (I myself have done it, having rented a motorcycle twice in the UK, and didn’t find it so bad as long as I either followed traffic, or imagined myself doing so entering an empty intersection or roundabout.)
There’s a case currently in the news about the parents of a British teenager, Harry Dunn, seeking justice for his death as a result of being struck on his motorcycle by an American pulling out of a parking lot and driving into the wrong lane of the road (the driver in question is the wife of a US diplomat who has since hopped back to the US and is claiming diplomatic immunity).
There have also been a number of similar incidents in the US news I can remember; for example, the fact that American actor Matthew Broderick (“Ferris Buehler”) was once responsible for a wrong-lane head-on fatal collision in Northern Ireland.
This prompted me to reflect on the fact that there are, in fact, far more countries in the world that drive on the right than on the left - by area, about 5/6 of the world’s countries. Yet I have never heard a Brit, Aussie, Japanese, or HK person fretting about possibly getting into an accident while driving in the US or Europe. Googling for “British person driving on wrong side of road” only turns up Americans fretting about this issue while visiting Britain (of course, I am in America myself).
Shouldn’t this angst and error rate go both ways? Surely there are more UK and Irish visitors to Europe than vice versa, as a percent of the populations of the UK and Ireland vs. the population of Europe? Or is it exactly because it’s fairly routine for LHT drivers to eventually have to drive in RHT regions than vice versa, that the stress is more unidirectional?
I figure being in the minority, they are much more aware of the fact that this is even an issue-- ie they are more aware of us than we are of them.
An example: what do you think is more common in the US – a Christian telling his Jewish friend “Merry Christmas” (because he forgot, slipped up, or just doesn’t care) or the reverse, a Jewish person telling his Christian friend “Happy Hanukkah”?
I’ve no idea what the statistics are, but those who do drive on the Continent may well be more attuned to the expectation that everything’s different. And maybe more of us use public transport rather than drive anyway.
I should say I’ve never driven on the Continent, but I have ridden bikes and mopeds on the right, and I haven’t found it problematic understanding rules and road signs.
Is there something different about the way we train and test drivers?
Let’s not forget the street crossing fatalities. Americans will look to the left when crossing a street only expecting traffic to be approaching from the left in that lane. I know someone who forgot to look right in England and was run over and killed by a bus. They even have Look Right signs over there.
True - you forget how “instinctive” it is to look the direction for traffic that you grew up with. I almost got hit a few times visiting London.
I have rented vehicles in UK, Australia, and New Zealand. The only time I found myself driving the wrong side was on a deserted country road (near Ayers Rock). I clued in when I saw a bus coming towards me in the distance. Also, in parking lots the right side is instinctive for a North American, but typically you go slow enough to sort things out. In anywhere with traffic or plenty of signs, you don’t make the mistake. (My biggest problem, first time in London, was figuring out reverse on a manual transmission - there was a little ring under the knob I had to pull up; when I picked up the car I drove to the entrance instead where there were spikes pointed at he tires, so I had to back up and try the correct exit).
I can see why the American woman made the mistake - dark country road at night, presumably deserted, and the accident site appears to have been a blind hill with almost no time to react. Not sure what the penalty should be, but I don’t see jail time as a valid punishment.
I recall reading something about New Zealand a few years ago contemplating banning foreign drivers from renting cars, after one or two of these sort of crashes.
Speaking for Australians, we absolutely do fret about this. Just not on the internet (because we know most people on the internet are Americans, who have the opposite problem)
A former co-worker’s girlfriend was killed in exactly that way - went to the US, looked the wrong way, stepped out, boom. It’s a thing.
It’s possible that Brits might fret slightly less about this, since you can actually drive to a RHD country from the UK, so it’s easier to get experience RH driving
That is a sad thing to hear, and yes, only to be expected in the big picture.
But as I gave as a few examples, I could easily think of two high profile, in-the-(American)-news examples of “American driving in UK causes fatal accident by driving on the wrong side”, and I know I’ve heard of more, meaning they involved famous people or (in this latest case) sparking something of an international relations crisis.
I cannot think of any examples of news items of “British driver causes head on collision on I-95 by going the wrong way.” Even though I can think of literally five cases in my local news just in the past several years of fatal head-on collisions resulting from people driving down a road the wrong way. None of them involved confused foreign drivers reverting to their accustomed native convention, instead they involved at best a confused elderly or very new (teenage) driver (or someone high or drunk or actively trying to commit suicide).
GQ is not the place to discuss the appropriate punishment for the diplomat’s wife. The OP is just asking about the frequency of such incidents, which should be a factual topic.
Don’t people look both ways before crossing the street? I mean, unless it’s a one way street there could be traffic coming from both directions. And ‘look both ways’ is drilled into you from childhood.
I can see accidentally turning onto the road the wrong way if you aren’t used to the way the locals drive and revert to habit. but I have never walked into a street without looking both ways.
But you sometimes acquire habits you’re not aware of. Like looking carefully in the direction from which traffic usually is approaching, and casually (if at all) the other way.
I was once in a London cab that hit a woman (who proved to be an American tourist) attempting to cross a street while looking the wrong way. I saw the problem about to happen and expected the cab driver to brake - but he wasn’t on guard, no doubt expecting the woman to behave the way London pedestrians mostly do and not step off the curb before checking oncoming traffic.
(This incident ended fairly well: the cab “brushed” the woman aside, scaring her but causing no real damage except to her handbag.)
And in crossings with a median island with its own crosswalk light, where you have to stop in the median for the signal to continue, and so have to look the opposite way from what you just did previously when you cross the other half.
The requirements to get a license and the testing are FAR more rigorous in the UK (and Europe) than in the US.
I assume that affects the accident rate, at least for new/inexperienced drivers. How much it affects folks switching which side of the road they drive on I can’t say.
Last I knew Bermuda, which is drive left, does not allow rented cars. Most tourists coming to Bermuda presumably come from the US, Canada, Mexico, or another drive right country. Most roads in Bermuda twist through mountains and hills. It’s only too easy to see a car coming and pull to the right by instilled habit.
That’s my closest brush with death. On my first visit to London over 20 years ago, I was about to cross a street and looked left seeing no traffic and proceeded to step into the street. If it had not been a coworker of mine grabbing the back of my jacket and pulling me back onto the sidewalk, I would have been pancaked by a double decker bus!
Worth mentioning that there are numerous videos of British drivers driving on the wrong side of a divided highway in Britain. In those cases, alcohol or old age usually plays a part.
I have set off on the wrong side in France; fortunately, I soon realised and switched sides with no harm done.
It’s happened twice in the past year on the road right outside my apartment, same place too [trying to go east in the westbound lane]. Thankfully no collision happened either time.
I gotta admit, even though I do always look both ways, sometimes in a rush I know I’ve only looked at the close lane’s oncoming traffic direction before my first step onto the street on occasion.
One thing I frequently heard about, and encountered myself on a few occasions, is the tendency to go to the ‘wrong’ side after you return to your home country.
In this case, switching to the left didn’t create such an issue because I was hyper-conscious of it and was checking which side to go to at every intersection.
Returning to America, however, I relaxed as I was now back where I “just knew” how everything worked, and soon found myself going to the wrong side after making turns.