Wrong side right
Got my company car today, a 2005 Chevy Impala. The size of an ocean liner. I can barely open the passenger door while sitting on the driver's seat.
It's an automatic though, which essentially means its like driving in NFS. I initially thought I was going to have a lot of trouble handling such a big car - but actually the wide empty roads, at least 95% rule abiding traffic and the car's own power steering and really small turning radius, make it all much easier.
Actually driving on the right side isn't that much of a big deal. If you have a lot of previous driving experience, you easily adjust to the right side of the road. One thing is - you're sitting on the left side of the car, and so having oncoming traffic to your left is intuitive.
What is difficult though, is not the driving itself. It's driving when you have no clue of the directions and no GPS - just a huge paper map that folds the wrong way hiding your current location which you can't find anyway. If you take one wrong turn, you really lose your way - and getting back on track means at least a few additional miles.
The roadside is littered with signs - and you need to obey each and everyone. Especially hexagonal red stop signs, where you're supposed to pause (completely) for 3 seconds and then move on, allowing cars before you to move on. I've noticed traffic at 4 way stops actually move one by one, like they were on a round robin basis. No tailgating. Nice. It also helps inject safe distance between vehicles.
The traffic lights are obeyed too - though one weird thing - if you need to go left, and its a green for you, hang on - it's green for oncoming traffic too! So before you cut your left, you allow traffic coming straight at you to pass.
~
It's an automatic though, which essentially means its like driving in NFS. I initially thought I was going to have a lot of trouble handling such a big car - but actually the wide empty roads, at least 95% rule abiding traffic and the car's own power steering and really small turning radius, make it all much easier.
Actually driving on the right side isn't that much of a big deal. If you have a lot of previous driving experience, you easily adjust to the right side of the road. One thing is - you're sitting on the left side of the car, and so having oncoming traffic to your left is intuitive.
What is difficult though, is not the driving itself. It's driving when you have no clue of the directions and no GPS - just a huge paper map that folds the wrong way hiding your current location which you can't find anyway. If you take one wrong turn, you really lose your way - and getting back on track means at least a few additional miles.
The roadside is littered with signs - and you need to obey each and everyone. Especially hexagonal red stop signs, where you're supposed to pause (completely) for 3 seconds and then move on, allowing cars before you to move on. I've noticed traffic at 4 way stops actually move one by one, like they were on a round robin basis. No tailgating. Nice. It also helps inject safe distance between vehicles.
The traffic lights are obeyed too - though one weird thing - if you need to go left, and its a green for you, hang on - it's green for oncoming traffic too! So before you cut your left, you allow traffic coming straight at you to pass.
~
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