We hired a car over the last couple of days to have a look around. I named it the "Poo car" cos it looked and ran like shit! Anyway it was good practise for driving on the wrong side of the road and reminded me of all the things I have done wrong in the past. Firstly the actual driving on the right is not so hard.
Cornering however is an entirely different thing altogether!
Once in LA on Sunset boulevard I turned into 6 lanes of oncoming traffic and swerved thru all of them changing one lane at a time so nothing on this trip can match that, but I'm sure I'll try.
The success lays in working out exactly where to aim for when you are turning across multi lanes; if you don't then chaos is guaranteed!
There are some cool things about driving over here.
Firstly the stop sign rule. It's simply a matter of first in first served!
So if you come to a four way intersection with stop signs and you are first there, you stop then go.
If someone gets there before you then you wait for them, then you go and so one. This actually works very well and i have been one of 5 or 6 cars all at stop signs at the same time without any major dramas. I remember Tex teaching me this road rule a couple of years ago and him commenting that it would never work in NZ as all the drivers would claim to be there first! There are also some interesting signs.
Secondly the speed limits; they often have have a maximum and minimum limit. Today we were on a road with a max 50mph and a min 40mph which meant for a smooth flow.
One other good thing happened today; vindication of the extra money we have spent on the GPS system for our car in Europe. The first major holiday domestic occurred over directions as my navigator who shall remain namesless and I had differing opinions on the way to go on several occasions.
We have now seen much more of the island than expected and the mature behaviour of me throwing the maps seemed to help. Good news however when we somehow went west towards the airport when I had asked for the way east just as Air NZ finally rang with news of our lost case and we were able to say we were about 1/2 a mile away and went to pick it up straight away.
Cornering however is an entirely different thing altogether!
Once in LA on Sunset boulevard I turned into 6 lanes of oncoming traffic and swerved thru all of them changing one lane at a time so nothing on this trip can match that, but I'm sure I'll try.
The success lays in working out exactly where to aim for when you are turning across multi lanes; if you don't then chaos is guaranteed!
There are some cool things about driving over here.
Firstly the stop sign rule. It's simply a matter of first in first served!
So if you come to a four way intersection with stop signs and you are first there, you stop then go.
If someone gets there before you then you wait for them, then you go and so one. This actually works very well and i have been one of 5 or 6 cars all at stop signs at the same time without any major dramas. I remember Tex teaching me this road rule a couple of years ago and him commenting that it would never work in NZ as all the drivers would claim to be there first! There are also some interesting signs.Secondly the speed limits; they often have have a maximum and minimum limit. Today we were on a road with a max 50mph and a min 40mph which meant for a smooth flow.
One other good thing happened today; vindication of the extra money we have spent on the GPS system for our car in Europe. The first major holiday domestic occurred over directions as my navigator who shall remain namesless and I had differing opinions on the way to go on several occasions.
We have now seen much more of the island than expected and the mature behaviour of me throwing the maps seemed to help. Good news however when we somehow went west towards the airport when I had asked for the way east just as Air NZ finally rang with news of our lost case and we were able to say we were about 1/2 a mile away and went to pick it up straight away.
1 comment:
I hate to break it to ya Kev, but Tex is a little "off" on his knowledge of road rules in the good 'ol USofA. For the most part STOP signs are first come. But, should you get there at a similar time as another driver, you always yield to the car on the right. That's random, and, did you really drive on the wrong side of Sunset? You and Lyndsey Lohan could be friends. Hahaha...
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