"tim" wrote in message
...
If I had to drive in mainland Europe, I'd always hire a car locally and
wouldn't contemplate taking my own RHD car over there

Having done both, I find that sitting on the wrong side
of the car is far harder to get used to than positioning
myself on the wrong side of the road.

It's the gear stick I cant get used to.

--
Everything above is the personal opinion of the author, and nothing to do
with where he works and all that lovely disclaimery stuff.
Posted in his lunch hour too.

"Mark Brader" wrote in message
...

All of the above except Gibraltar. Most places that drive on the left
are around the Indian Ocean; the exceptions, like Japan and Britain,
are island countries.

And Cyprus.

Ian

"Martin Rich" wrote in message
...

Incidentally the Wikipedia entry is at variance with other accounts
that I have read when it comes to buses: apparently most buses in
Sweden were just replaced when the changeover took place and only a
few were converted

There were a lot of buses with convertible entrances, which were sold to
Nigeria after conversion had taken place.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
"Michael Bell" wrote in message
...

Junction 8 on the M1 was designed "wrong way round"
in Mrs Castle's time to test the idea of designing junctions
so that they could be changed over to right-hand drive,
but the experiment was never repeated.

In what way was it designed the wrong way round? Just wrong gradients and
curvatures?

When they first started building motorways, they stated that all junctions
were designed with the possibility of eventual conversion to RHD.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

In message , Richard J.
writes

Not sure how you constructed that, but the lines are all over the place
on my screen. If you're going to post diagrams like this, please use a
fixed-width font like Courier New when drawing them and avoid using
tabs.

It looked fine here - but you are right in saying that using tabs will
confuse Microsoft newsreaders.

I think you meant something like this (view in fixed width font):

(snip)

Yes, that's pretty much what his original looked like here.

--
Paul Terry

"Mark Brader" wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood:
If we'd done it several decades ago, it would have been feasible, but
nowadays it's not a realistic option. What a shame that The World didn't
agree right from the outset of the motor car to drive on the same side
of
the road ...

Well, at least there are no longer any countries where it varies from one
part of the country to another.

It all depends on whether you consider Hong Kong to be part of China.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 18:02:36 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

I believe in New Zealand (or maybe Australia) you have to give way to
oncoming traffic that it indicating to turn right (ie your left) across your
path into a side road.

That used to be the case in (the State of) Victoria, Australia. This
rule was abolished some ten - or there about - years ago.

--
Cheers,

Jason.

Martin Underwood wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 9 Jan 2005:

"Richard J." wrote in message
news
Martin Underwood wrote:
"Niklas Karlsson" wrote in message
...

Ever noticed those white oval plates with GB on them? Ever thought how
their owners managed to drive in LHD countries? The idea that you would
have to scrap all RHD cars if we changed the rule of the road is absurd.
Yes, there are some problems, and overtaking on narrow
single-carriageway roads without a passenger to help you is nasty , but
I've never had a problem on a motorway apart from paying at the péage
where the kiosk is on the British nearside.

If I had to drive in mainland Europe, I'd always hire a car locally and
wouldn't contemplate taking my own RHD car over there -

We always take our own, and have never had a problem. And as most of
our holidays tend to be motoring holidays, we in fact drive *more* on
the right-hand side of the road than we do on the left!

Which countries still drive on the left?

- UK/Ireland, obviously
- Channel Islands
- Australia
- Malta
- Gibraltar? Or does that drive on the left like Spain?
- Japan (I wonder why)

What about former British colonies like India? I *think* they still drive on
the left.

India, Pakistan, Hong Kong - not sure about mainland China, though.
Which countries did Michael Palin visit on the recent "Himalaya" show?
I know most of the cars one saw were right-hand drive.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

Paul Weaver wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 10 Jan 2005:

"tim" wrote in message
...
If I had to drive in mainland Europe, I'd always hire a car locally and
wouldn't contemplate taking my own RHD car over there

Having done both, I find that sitting on the wrong side
of the car is far harder to get used to than positioning
myself on the wrong side of the road.

It's the gear stick I cant get used to.

Except that in the USA they don't know how to drive manual shift cars,
so that you always get an automatic anyway.....
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
news:41e1c553$0$34063$ed2e19e4@ptn-nntp-


Even on a motorway you'd have to take your eyes off the road ahead and
look a long way off-axis to see the nearside (left-hand) mirror. To be
really sure, an over-the-shoulder check is probably advisable. This
requires you to anticipate the need to overtake further in advance to
allow a bit of extra distance from the car in front yo cover the time when
you're not looking straight ahead.

I had to do this with the 106D anyway.

The main difficulties came with adapting to things that weren't just a
lateral inversion but were differences between US and UK signing and road
marking:

- lack of amber light to warn that traffic lights were about to turn green

- appalling direction signing on non-highway (ie single-carriageway
roads): maybe I'm too used to the British standard of signposting where at
almost every junction the places and distances that can be reached in each
direction are shown, so you don't have to look out for small
white-on-pale-green road-name signs

This can be just as bad in Europe.

- lack of a stop or give-way line across the road where my minor road
meets a major road; this was especially a problem where the minor road met
the major road on a bend: judging where to aim to stop was difficult

Here in Germany the stop line is very far back from the junction.
I think that you are supposed to stop behind it so that peds/cycles
can cross whilst you are waiting. If I stop behind it I often can't see
if there is traffic approaching on the main road (because I'm on the
wrong side)

- four-way stop junctions: any junction which depends on the time (order)
at which cars arrived (instead of their relative position on the road) to
determine who has priority is pretty stupid because it's open to two
people having different ideas as to who has priority

I liked these. I never had a problem with who's turn it was.
As you have noted later, most drivers are far more polite and
no-one tries to jump their turn.

And I liked the idea of temporary speed limits outside schools etc:

agreed

very slow during arrival/departure times but realistic at all other times,
whereas we'd probably have a blanket 30 (or even 20) 24 hours a day.

There's one of these in a small village that I have to drive through
when I come off the motorway back from the UK, when I often
arrive at after midnight. WTF use is a 30km speed limit outside a
school at 1 in the morning?

tim