Tips for Driving Safely on the Wrong Side of the Road!

For many of us Brits, the prospect of a ‘wine trip’ to Calais or a long, spectacular drive down to Frejus in the glorious sun-soaked south of France (with overnight stays in lovely hotels along the way) is quite irresistible. Rather more resistible however, is the sudden ‘spatial intelligence crisis’ of abruptly having to drive on what is, for us, the ‘wrong side of the road’ – an anxiety which kicks in from the moment you drive off the ferry. Even if we’ve flown to Ibiza or Tenerife, California or Mexico, we’ll face the same problem the instant we hire a car. Without wishing to make light of the very serious problems – some of them can be lethal – which can arise from moments of confusion, we might be letting anxiety cloud our motoring judgments when cool awareness and simple logic could come to our aid. Here are some sound practical tips to take the angst out of driving on the ‘other side.’

Is this the scene you're after?

If you’ve taken your own car to France through the Channel Tunnel or by ferry, the very first thing you’ll notice when people start saying ‘Bonjour’ is that your steering wheel is now on the passenger side. You can’t peer into your wing-mirror and accurately see who’s behind you, unless you’re tracking pedestrians. Overtaking quickly becomes a hair-whitening nightmare and as for roundabouts … perhaps we need to pack a brown paper bag in the glove compartment to hyperventilate into. The first tip, and a slightly counter intuitive one at that, is: don’t ‘think’ too much. Your senses will often show you how the traffic is flowing and how you should fit in with it.

Let’s start with roundabouts – those fun-fair named vertices of snarling cars and bone-shuddering juggernauts that make our legs turn to jelly when we’re driving on the right hand side. Tip number one is: GO WITH THE FLOW. Don’t try to remember things like ‘give way to the left.’ If you’re anything like me these words quickly become meaningless sounds squawking numbingly from your inner parrot. Roundabouts are designed so that you’d really have to go against the grain to defy their flow – the roads joining them are angled so that your car ends up pointing in the direction you need to go. So don’t try to remember a rule of thumb, just follow the line of the road.

Suicide circles

Another typical panic point is when you have to join a main road from a junction. Again, when the road is busy, memorised rules of thumb may interfere with your natural judgement here. Just observe the direction the traffic you see before you is taking and follow suit. With a more deserted scene, pause – you will on occasions like this have time to think (thinking isn’t bad – it just tends to go wrong when you try to do it at high speed and full of panic). It’s a good idea to cultivate the habit of looking in both directions; in the UK, when you want to turn left, you’re used to instinctively looking right first for oncoming traffic. Abroad, give yourself time to look carefully in both directions, more than once if you can. But rules of thumb sometimes have their place; if you’re not in busy traffic in such a situation, remember the mantra ‘Think Right, Look Left!’

Let’s move on to another confusion zone – European and North American traffic lights. Unlike the typical icons in the UK, in these countries a flashing amber light, even in conjunction with a red light, means that you can filter to the right if there is no traffic to obstruct you. We’re more accustomed to those green, horizontal arrow lights in the UK, but flashing amber means the same thing in much of Europe.

If your adrenal glands can stand it, we’ll drive along next to the motorway – the ‘ultimate laxative’ if you’re not used to it. A simple tip: just keep to the slowest lane. The slowest lane in Europe and the USA is on the RIGHT – and this is something you do need to remember! However, if you feel brave enough and you want to pick up speed, you might need to overtake. But if your steering wheel is now on the wrong side, how do you do this? A good policy is to appoint someone whose judgement you inherently trust to sit on your passenger side and keep a keen lookout on the wing mirror. You’ll be told when it’s safe to pull out. But if you can’t appoint someone to such a trusted position, and the vehicle in front of you is relatively ordinary in size, inch out a little and take a peep. If the road is clear, put your foot down. But if you’re behind a long lorry – especially if oncoming traffic is even moderately heavy – forget it. Be late and survive! For safety’s sake in these conditions, you simply have to chill out and be patient.

An important, although rarely, emphasised tip is: be aware of classic danger areas. If you’ve just filled your car up at the petrol station, you’re in a danger situation – a large proportion of accidents occur driving away from the pump back onto the main road, as too many of us forget the left/right divide at this point. You need special vigilance, too, when you’re pulling away from a parking space at the side of the road, especially in small towns and rural areas. These are accident black-spots – heightened awareness may feel like anxiety but sometimes, as in this situation, it’s entirely justified.

Be aware leaving petrol stations

Finally, if you’re travelling with a good friend or a spouse, make sure they know it’s alright to yell at you – loudly – if they see you about to drive on the wrong side of the road. A moment’s bruised pride is worth it if a multiple pile-up is averted! We all make mistakes, more often than most of us would care to acknowledge, and if a shout or shriek brings you to your senses behind the wheel, lives can literally be saved as a result.