Mark Brader wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 10 Jan 2005:

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

China? Hong Kong drives on the left, but I don't think mainland China
does.... And since we gave it back ten years or so ago, it's all been
one country.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

John Ray wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 9 Jan 2005:

John Rowland wrote:

Anyway, Queen Square is all clockwise except for the southeast corner, which
is two way... now *that's* confusing.

Russell Square now has a Northbound bus lane on the East side, so that
that side is 2-way. However, if I remember correctly, there is a
physical barrier (kerbstones or similar) between the two lanes.

Only where the bus lane peels off - most Northbound traffic goes left to
go round the square. We were following a bus last time we went past,
and I reminded my husband not to follow the bus through on to the
bus-lane - except the bus then promptly turned left itself, which
confused us both!
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
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.

Using tabs will confuse any newsreader if the user has decided to
change the default tab width because they like it that way.

In the absence of an enforcable Internet standard for tab size using
tabs in a diagram is stupid IMHO.

tim

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 22:51:49 +0100, "tim"
wrote:

It is still common for a side road to have priority over the main road
though.

This in itself isn't unknown in British towns. It's normally achieved
by way of a mini roundabout.

In other words, with very clear advance warning signs and road markings to
give the driver on the major road time to slow down to a realistic speed
to be able to stop if a car *does* approach from the right.

or from the left wanting to turn intoi the road.

No, they aren't comparable at all.

tim

I drove through Sweden about 3 weeks before the change-over to the
right. We drove over a bridge over an inlet in the coast from Norway and
there was a sign telling you to change sides. We stopped and looked round -
it's obviously a possibly dangerous manoevre, and not one you do every day,
and then drove over to the left side. It felt oddly naughty.

The road signs and traffic lights had all been moved to the other
side, it was very strange, but most off-putting were the road-paintings,
which had been covered up with black PVC, but it had been torn off. So you
had to drive right over an arrow pointing straight at you! It took some
doing.

Göteborg trams were going to continue, they were coupled in
back-to-back pairs, a left-hander and a right-hander. On change-over day they
would be driven from the other end in the other direction. The change-over
was made the opportunity for getting rid of the trams in HÄlsingborg, and
probably some other places too.

There was no problem going into Denmark, we simply drove onto the
ferry on the left and off on the right.

3 years ago, I drove onto the ferry at Eckerö (Åland Islands) on the
way to Sweden and the money collector (a Finn by nationality) openly laughed
at my RHD car with its "wheel at the wrong side" (med hjulet på fell siden).
He was in his mid 20s and cannot have remembered that Sweden once had
left-hand traffic.

Michael Bell
--

Ian F. wrote:

"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.


They drive on the left in Fiji. And in the middle of the road, and
sometimes on the right. The accident rate is appalling.

--
John Ray

"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
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

Interesting. What font do you use to display plain text messages, and
what newsreader are you using? I'm using OE (normally with Quote-Fix
but native OE was just the same), and tried Courier New, Arial and Times
New Roman, with equally bad results from all three.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 00:19:51 +0000 (UTC), "Terry Harper"
wrote:

Nigeria made the change, and lorries and buses changed first, then cars a
few days later. They did however keep cars off the road for those few
days....

But they must have a horrendous road safety record there, given the
number of widows and orphans who e-mail me details of millionaire TOP
OFFICIALs who have died in TRAGIC AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENTs.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

In article , Michael Bell
writes
I remember calculating at the time that the Swedish change-over cost 2 week's
GNP. That's an awful lot of money. And for what? 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.

Ah, is that the reason? I've always felt that the northbound entry to
the M1 at J8 is by far the most dangerous that I've seen on UK motorways
- first you have to negotiate a rather sharp bend and then accelerate up
to the prevailing traffic speed, usually around 70 mph and merge, all in
about 100 metres, far shorter than anywhere else. I'm surprised that
there aren't more accidents there, and am amazed that the authorities
have never lengthened the slip road.

--
Clive Page

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 19:34:53 +0100, "tim"
said:


"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

You should know that there could have been one those speed cameras
(gatso) on a pole in the school zone, that is why the 30 km/h speed
limit is there. Did you get caught on camera?