Britain from A to Z: D

Driving

Let me address the obvious first. In Britain, people drive on the wrong—uh, I mean left—side of the road. Whichever way you want to look at it, they drive on the side of the road opposite to right. When we were trying to decide whether to take a tour or plan the trip ourselves, one of the considerations was our lack of experience driving on the side of the road opposite from what we have always driven on. I didn’t think I would personally have a problem on country roads with little traffic, but I could easily see myself getting confused in a place like London. And then there are those roundabouts. I’m not used to doing these on the right side of the road, let alone the left/wrong side. Needless to say, I was a bit concerned. But we ultimately decided to take a tour for many reasons other than the driving. So, for the entire >2-week trip I didn’t touch one steering wheel. It was a nice break.

I thought it would be weird just riding on the left side of the road, but sitting up high in the tour bus, it really wasn’t. It was on the final day of our trip that Kathy and I got a real taste of left-side riding. We had a chauffeur drive us to the airport in a private car. This was included in the tour price. Then it seemed strange. From the car, we could more easily see the other vehicles whizzing by us on the right side. Andrew had already experienced this as he had ridden a London taxi to the Sherlock Holmes Museum while Kathy and I walked to Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square.

At one point in our tour, our guide explained why the left side of the road was the right side of the road to drive on. Back in the day when people mostly used horses for transportation, a person would occasionally run upon a hooligan that had to be fought off with sword or spear. Since most people were right-handed, it was only natural for the horses to pass to the right of each other, meaning they were on the left side of the road. So, as motorized vehicles made their ascension, people just naturally stuck to the familiar side. I guess that means that either roadway sword fighting was rare here in the colonies, or most colonists were left-handed.

We had two different bus drivers while on our tour. The first driver, Mark, quite a friendly ole chap, drove the first week as we made our circuitous way from Glasgow, Scotland, to London, England. Richard then took over the second week, taking us to Wales and looping back to Windsor, England. I was amazed by these drivers. Much of our trip was on narrow country roads where the great scenery was. Sometimes it seemed that we were on a one lane road. And sometimes we met another tour bus or a large truck. Each vehicle had to get off the side of the road to pass. Sometimes our left windows were scrapping tree limbs while doing this. I was just glad that I wasn’t the one driving.

Britain has a lettering system for its roadways. The larger highways are M, such as M1 or M40. These were typically divided highways with multiple lanes similar to the US’s Interstate system. The next level road, which could be four lanes, but more typically just nicer two lane roads are lettered A, such as A2 or A9. The major A roads are based on radial patterns from London and Edinburgh. The local roads are lettered B, such as B1091 or B4343. For more information, see this article.

Just in case you were thinking it: No, I didn’t see any wild drivers cutting off people or weaving in and out of traffic. But then again I spent most of my time sitting up high on a bus where other vehicles were hard to see. There’s no telling what was going on below.

A59 Kingsway Tunnel in Liverpool