Please pass along words of wisdom as to getting to the H M S Victory in Portsmouth. Today is our first day of driving in England. We aren't haven't any trouble remembering to stay on the left but my husband is getting too close to the curb. Do you have nay words of wisdom?
Will traffic be lighter on the motorway since it will be a Sunday morning? We have yet to drive on a motorway and plan to stay in the far left lane.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
I haven't made that trip, but I've driven in the UK many times. You'll be fine. It sounds like you have a navigator, which is step up from my travels. ; ) What you want to do is plot your drive not only by route numbers, but also by the towns that show up on the route. You'll find that most of the directions include a town name. It's easy to bump that left hand curb. We're so conscious of not wanting to drift to the right! Try remembering that you're driving a small car--at least I expect you are--and that you've got the full lane. It takes practice. He'll get better at it with time. When I got home from my first UK driving trip and got into my car, I went to shift and slammed my left arm into the door! That was a two-week trip with ten days of driving, so habits do develop more quickly than you'd think.
Pam
Hi Charlene,
I haven't driven in England EVER but my husband has and so far no one has died though he did give the car a good whack on the foundation of a house we rented in Wales once...
When you do get to Portsmouth, plan to park the car somewhere nearby...there are garages available and stay all day if you can. There's lots to see and though HMS Victory is the star...I found the "Mary Rose" much more intriguing. Imagine seeing the remains of a boat pulled out of the mud, that had been launched in the days of Henry VIII! That was so amazing as is the way they are preserving it!
If you get to Stockholm one day you will see another ship preserved in it's own museum in much the same way. It took years and is awesome too!
Mollie Bee
Many people find driving on the motorways easier, no tricky intersections to get confused in while turning. You mentioned getting to close to the curbs, some people take the left side hubcaps off on day 1, just to avoid dinging em up--depends on whether or not you paid for the CDW.
They say victory is to the bold in European driving. Resolve that you will not be one of those wimp Americans that lags along in the slow lane causing all the backups (Europeans define traffic snake as different from real snake in that in real snake the a*% is in the back instead of the front)
Be not dismayed. We stayed at a B&B in Bath one year where our hosts "real job" was teaching driving. He told us they have to replace tires on the left side of a car more often than the right side. It's not just us Americans hitting curbs. We've had a wall come out and hit us in Ireland and in Shaftsbury a whole house jumped out and hit us. When I navigate it's one of my jobs to shout "curb" when we're getting too close.
OK it sounds goofy but I put a post-it note on the dash reading "RIGHT SHOULDER TO THE LINE!" After a couple of days this becomes automatic. When turning we become bobble-heads looking both directions and only turn when both of us say "clear". Do not drive in the slow lane as that's where all the lorries are, that is unless you like driving bumper to bumper with a lorrie in front and a lorrie in back with everyone going 80 mph!
I usually stick to the middle lane and once outside of the London hub it's pretty easy. Something which was disconcerting the first time I drove there was the practice of everyone parking on one side of the street with cars facing both directions AND the cars being half on the sidewalk and half in my lane. Americans are almost incapable of driving down the middle of a marked road but that's what you have to do. Either you or on-coming traffic moves over into a wide spot till it's safe to pass. When you come to a round-about the navigator should say exit at say, 11 o'clock. View the upcoming round about as a clock with you entering it at 6 - it's easy for the driver's mind to visualize and if you miss just go around again!
