Trip to Val Thorens

"Jeremy Mortimer" wrote in message
...
Iain Campbell wrote in
:

But once on the road, my normal driving and road sense kicked in and
it wasn't long before I forgot I was in a foreign car. It was actually
a surprise in a service station when I realised it had a French number
plate and I was walking to the correct door without thinking! LOL!

Hah! I've been living in Switzerland and driving a left hand drive car for
more than ten years, and I still often go to the wrong side of the car.

Actually, while I agree with you that it's not difficult, it's worth
noting
that it gets a bit more dangerous when you get used to it. When you let
your guard down and there happen to be no obvious cues (other cars or
whatever) is when you'll do something dumb like pull away on the wrong
side
of the road.

And the time you let your guard down is often when you go back home.
I did 8 months in the Netherlands once; Came back for the weekend and was
just leaving the airport when I caught myself going up the slip road for
coming OFF of the motorway! Fortunately it was about 2am and there was
nobody about (which is probably why I managed to get that far).

"Jeremy Mortimer" wrote in message
...
Iain Campbell wrote in
:

But once on the road, my normal driving and road sense kicked in and
it wasn't long before I forgot I was in a foreign car. It was actually
a surprise in a service station when I realised it had a French number
plate and I was walking to the correct door without thinking! LOL!

Hah! I've been living in Switzerland and driving a left hand drive car for
more than ten years, and I still often go to the wrong side of the car.

Actually, while I agree with you that it's not difficult, it's worth
noting
that it gets a bit more dangerous when you get used to it. When you let
your guard down and there happen to be no obvious cues (other cars or
whatever) is when you'll do something dumb like pull away on the wrong
side
of the road.

Still, plenty of people manage just fine. It's not hard.

Jeremy

I've been in Switzerland for fifteen years and found recently that I was
losing the plot driving and simply gave up and sold my car. Drive on the
other side of the road - seems easy but then again the 'other' side becomes
the correct side and...

In my case it's co-ordination where I'm weak.

Saw a nasty accident a few weeks ago here where a UK car pulled out onto the
wrong side and was hit by a bus.
--
Simon Brown
www.hb9drv.ch

Holidays: 07-Dec-2004 to 16-Dec-2004, no email access

John Wilcock wrote:


But to reassure the original poster I've never experienced this problem
after hiring a car abroad, only after driving abroad with my own car.
Adjusting to an unfamilar car with its steering wheel on the correct
side for the country you're in is somehow easier than adjusting to
driving a familiar car on the wrong side of the road.

John.

I disagree; when driving a LHD car I tend to be too near the verge and
have to make a concerted effort to position the car correctly. This may
be due to spending far more time driving RHD cars that I am familiar
with on the right rather than hire cars.

Strangely my biggest problems a taking directions - in Britain a RH
turn is across the traffic, so I turn left when told to turn right; and
as a pedestrian where I still walk into the road looking the wrong way.

John

BrritSki wrote:
Iain Campbell wrote:

Tom wrote:

yeh, maybe the car hire idea is worth looking into. not too confident
with the whole drive on the right thing though, along with steep
alpine passes and predicated snow on sunday night...

tom



I wouldn't worry about it. snip good advice


The only thing I'd add is to be careful when you get back to the UK, you
think everything is back to normal so no need to concentrate and you
find yourself driving on the right !


Good point. I get round that by having someone in the car with me the
first time back in it. Or, if I've flown, the taxi from the airport is
usually enough to re-synch my brain to the left side of the road.

The other one, which is probably more relevant to me in particular, is
if you've driven from Calais to the Alps. But here, too, when you get
off the ferry you can't go any other way than onto the left out of the
port and there are signs every few miles reminding you.