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Driving downunder ( or driving yourself crazy )

To: <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Subject: Driving downunder ( or driving yourself crazy )
From: "Keith Turk" <kturk@ala.net>
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 02:25:10 -0600
First off it's not driving on the wrong side of the road.... it's driving on
the left.... trust me on this... if you drive on the right your on the wrong
side and folks instantly take notice....

Honestly driving was my biggest fear... and Gary will attest it wasn't
unwarranted... We started out having a ball with it... there are several
things that are different... like the steering column has the turn signals on
the right side and wipers on the left.... so everytime we'd go to turn we'd
hit the Wipers instead of the turn signal.... it was an absolute riot... we
laughed our asses off the first part of the trip... but after a while it
simply got to be a pain in the butt.  Same with driving on the left.... it
took major concentration in the early going... but after a while we settled
into it... but every once in a while we be caught with an intersection that
took your breath away.... seriously it's a bitch kitty to change how you think
about where you should be on the other side of the intersection.

Okay now I have to tell on myself.... I was in the pits cruising the rental
car, after hanging out with some folks for a bit ... I got in the car to
continue on... only to realize I'd gotten in the left side.... so I'm sitting
there and instantly realize I didn't have a steering wheel over here... and
since it had bucket seats... coolly sliding over wasn't an option..... so I
looked around a bit ... made it look like I planned it.... got out... when to
the back seat on the right side... looked around a bit.... and then went to
the drivers side and got in and started off...  I was acting fairly cool about
it... but old habits die hard.... Good thing I could laugh about it.... it had
to look pretty stupid...

By the way it's the left side that's lacking the steering wheel... as you can
tell after two weeks of this junk.... it gets sorta confusing...   My
recommendation on learning to drive over there is to start out from the rental
car parking lot and follow someone going down the road... just keep following
them until you get where they are going and pick up someone else.... inside of
30 minutes you'll get the hang of it and not be to far from where you want to
be.... it's not that big of a deal... but it is a pain in the butt.

Keith




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