Any Tips On Driving A Left Hand Drive Vehicle In The UK?

Get used to driving in the ditch. Or, at least, that will be how it feels at first from your new viewpoint.

Driving a left hand drive in the UK requires a lot of concentration and observation. Keep a close eye on your door mirror to monitor where you are sitting on the carriageway. It is all to easy to end up drifting into the middle of the road when you are so used to driving left of the centre line.

Be aware, therefore, of your position on the road at all times, or you risk incurring the wrath of not only oncoming traffic but that of vehicles behind you.

One of the biggest dangers with a left hand drive is overtaking. Leave plenty of room from the vehicle in front before pulling out. Ask your front seat passenger for help if you can trust their judgement.

Turning left at junctions is another problem as your view from the right will be obscured unless the junction is approached more straight on than would otherwise be the case. Keep a sharp look out though for other drivers attempting to squeeze up the inside.

Driving a left hand drive car in the UK is not so bad, just remember to look the right way at intersections (the same applies to crossing the street as a pedestrian). The only thing I found hard to do is to pass someone on a narrow street as it just seems to be so wrong to pass on the right. One thing tht did not make it any easier is that I was driving a 27 horsepower Citroen 2CV that takes a while to accelerate. The slow accleration in combination with the right half of your car sticking out into oncoming traffic when you try to check for traffic made it very challenging.

I absolutely loved the roundabouts. It takes a while to get used to them. If you just want to turn into the street to the left of you you just treat the roundabout like a regular intersection where the drivers in the round about have the right of way and you use your left indicator and enter the roundabout and exit it into the street you want to go. If your want to go straight or to the street to the right of you, you use your right indicator when you enter the round about and as you pass the exit before your exit you change the indicator to the left to exit the next possible exit. Pretty simple really once you have done it. When you get to intersections where a large white paint circle is on the road you have come across a round about as well. Some of these miniature roundabouts have several roundabouts one leading into another. These situations are pretty complex. Acouple of times I just closed my eyes and went.