# When I drove on the other side of the road, my brain flipped left and right

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-drove-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-my-brain-flipped-left-and-right/1034932>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 13, 2026, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-drove-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-my-brain-flipped-left-and-right/1034932 "2026-11-13T00:14:42Z")\
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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2026, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-drove-on-the-other-side-of-the-road-my-brain-flipped-left-and-right/1034932/1 "2026-11-13T00:14:42Z")

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This year I had a lot of practice driving in Spain, where they drive on the right side of the road (in the UK where I live, we drive on the left).  
Adjusting to driving on the other side was fairly simple - the harder part was just understanding and complying with conventions, signs and signals etc.

They have similar sorts of road junctions to us - dual carriageway, roundabouts, T junctions and the like - no major surprises there (although their roundabout rules are weird to me).

But one thing I noticed after I really got comfortable with driving was that I found myself saying left when I meant right, and vice versa. Knowing my left and right has never been a problem for me before.

It’s sort of understandable in the context of roundabouts - ‘go left at the roundabout’ in the UK typically means taking the first exit, and if you take the first exit off a Spanish roundabout, you’re typically turning right, but it was not limited to roundabouts - I’d find myself often referring to any left turn as ‘right’ and vice versa.

It didn’t manifest in any reversed perception of course - text didn’t appear reversed or anything like that, just my ability to express directions was flipped. Whenever I was back in the UK and driving there, the problem was gone, but on repeated returns to drive in Spain, it was back again, and only when I was behind the wheel. (We had to do a lot of navigation to find new places and such, so there was a lot of opportunity to notice it happening)

Anyone else ever experienced anything like this?