Driving in the UK

Today I rented a car for a few hours. I used to drive in Spain, but I hadn’t driven since I came to London. I wanted to practice in not too stressful conditions before my family comes to visit me. Also I needed to buy some furniture.

There are two problems for a Spanish driver in the UK (actually for most drivers from outside of the UK).

First. Cars have the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car, while outside the UK(overseas as they say) the steering wheel is on the left.

Second, people drive on the left of the road while in many other countries is on the right.

You probably knew that.

Now, my experience.

On one hand, things a knew I had to pay attention, and have not been too problematic: Remember to go clockwise when you enter a roundabout. Remember to go to the left hand side when you turn to and enter in a new street.

On the other, things that I knew, but that have been more difficult to manage. I know the gear stick is on the left, but my 20 years of manual car driving experience kept telling me the stick is on the right. No, no, no. On the right is only the door. No tips on that, but I guess it is a matter of practice. Another thing quite difficult is to not be too close to the left side of the road. My tip is to be aware of this problem and force oneself to be close to the right side of your path.

Anyway, no big issues (and the ones were more because of driving a diesel car). Safe at home at 2pm. Siesta (one day I’ll write about it), and evening assembling a new table and chair.