[bpk]

Hi

I know most of people in this Forum are comming from UK, in which the driving is at the left side. For me, I have never driven a car at the left side. So what is it like ( also it is the same for people from UK when they drive at the right side) ?

Is there any difficulties especially at the begining?
:D

[Rabbit]

http://www.landtransport.govt.nz/overseasdrivers/driving-in-nz.html

The biggest danger intitially is loosing concentration and going auto-pilot on the wrong side of the road.

So be careful when taking a turn.

I remember once picking up an american friend at a UK airport, we were chatting away, I had been driving on the left-side for months; the last time I had saw my friend was in Holland who drive on the right; All of a sudden I found myself on the wrong side of the road. My brain must have thought as I am with this person, I must be in another country.

Also, this may sound silly, but know which is your left and right hand :D

[Cardy]

hello i am from uk and have only tried driving on the right once ,it was to weird for me my hands were all over in the wrong direction but most of my workmates changed no problem when we worked in italy and germany. I think if i had come to a roundabout i,d have been a nervous wreck . I sure am glad they drive on the left in NZ or i would have had to earn a lot to employ a chauffeur.!! :D

[bpk]

[url]

Also, this may sound silly, but know which is your left and right hand :D

:laugh This is the question. May I take advice from others?

[Laurie]

For me the problem was not driving on the left side but having to change the gears with your left hand. This is not something I was used to. People always told me that the driver is always on the side of the middle line so knowing this made driving on the left really easy...It was when you came to turn on the windshield wipers ....I kept turning on the blinkers to indicate I wanted to turn....

I also made a point of not driving when I was tired or at night...anyway it is those roundabouts that will kill you...You just get so confused that you end up going around in circles before you figure out when it is your turn...

[Cardy]

[QUOTE=Cardy]hello i am from uk and have only tried driving on the right once ,it was to weird for me my hands were all over in the wrong direction but most of my workmates changed no problem when we worked in italy and germany. I think if i had come to a roundabout i,d have been a nervous wreck . I sure am glad they drive on the left in NZ or i would have had to earn a lot to employ a chauffeur.!! :D[/QUOI am left handed dont know if this makes it harder for me

[bpk]

For me the problem was not driving on the left side but having to change the gears with your left hand. ...
This is a good point i did not thought about! yes I think it is a probelm to change gear with the left hand! So it would be find to drive automatic car :laugh

[jen]

I caught on to left-side driving faster than I expected to, though I'm glad I never had to parallel park as it seemed much harder to judge the distance to the curbs from the side of the car that I wasn't used to driving on.

I only drove in NZ for a week & the thing that never fully sunk in was that the turn signal and windshield wiper controls were reversed from what I'm used to - I lost count of all the times I would automatically reach for the turn signal and be very surprised to see the wiper blades going!

[starkhorn]

I'm from ireland but I've been living in France for the past 6 years so I've totally converted over to driving on the right-hand side of the road.

The strangest thing when I go back home to Ireland and drive is changing gears with my left hand again. For right-hand person it's just more natural to change the gears with the right-hand.

Just go slow at first, and do small journeys until you get used to it.

[Singel]

My Dutch hubby never drive on the left-side until he came to NZ and he has no problem switching over on the 1st day. I guess we bought an automatic car which helps to make his driving easier so that he do not bother too much about changing gears, and just concentrate on the road.

We started with the Japanese import and he always got the indicator and the wiper wrong. He is rather fed up with the mixing up, so we sold the car and bought a continental car. Now he could switch the indicator with his left hand and the wiper with his right hand.

:cheers

[Jonathon1977]

I just don't think I can do it. I am on auto-pilot way too much in life. I often drift into deep thought, not good when driving. I have almost been killed several times because I can't remember to look right instead of left when crossing the road. I would hate to read the news story if I tried to drive.

I may never drive again but that seems super as far as I am concerned.

Jonathon

[lisa]

The main thing to worry about isn't what side of the road you are used to driving on - you will adjust - it's the kiwi drivers you will need to watch out for!

[bpk]

The main thing to worry about isn't what side of the road you are used to driving on - you will adjust - it's the kiwi drivers you will need to watch out for!
I have heard that they drive with high speed, do not have even insurrance !!

[Aydon]

I drove on the right in the US for 6 months - got used to it but the first day I nearly had a head-on - with me flashing the other driver telling him to get out of my lane - whoops!

I have been told that one of the hardest things to get used to is roundabouts - but there weren;t any in the US so I couldn't comment :)

[gil]

Hi bpk,
I took to driving on the "wrong" side of the road really easily when I moved to Italy from UK. Main issue I had was getting familiar with the Italian highway code. As you might imagine, there are "rules" for driving in Italy, but they are all superseded by the Number One Unwritten Rule, which is "All rules are for guidance only" :D
You get used to it quickly because that's what you do on a daily basis.
You'll be fine!
Gil

[Avalon]

Left or right - they still drive like nutter here either way. Sometimes even the Kiwis dont seem to know what side they are supposed to be on!

[Nienke]

I think I'll go for an automatic too, switching gear with my left hand is one of my main worries.... And as I'll be the one driving my son around most of the time, I don't want to be dangerously driving fumbling with the gear/wipers/blinkers/right-left side of the road!

[Buyio]

where u from bpk? cool to see your question, actually I've got the same one. have never drive a car on right side wheel :d

[Simon & Emily]

Coming from the UK it's not one of my worries, but I do remember reading that someone used to wear just one glove whilst driving, in this case on the left hand, to remind themselves which side of the road to drive on. It sounds silly, but they swore that it worked.

I gues the real problem though is not which side of the road, but the small but very significant differences in rules of the road. By this I mean knowing what is expected from/by other drivers, such as the now obsolete (thankfully) French rule of traffic joining the roundabout had right of way, or the 'self-preservation' rule in NZ.

Emily

[clg]

I did not have a hard time adjusting from the US. I drove in the UK for a week a bit over a year ago, first time on the left side and that was very hard the first few days Driving here in NZ has been fairly easy, not all that much traffic (compared to LA or London) and much smaller roundabouts than I hit in the UK.

[Rabbit]

Roundabouts are a great invention - I love them

A good way to keep the trafic flowing without stop-lights

They need good signs so that before you enter you know where you are going.

I suppose a matter of personal taste and what you are used too.

[bpk]

where u from bpk? cool to see your question, actually I've got the same one. have never drive a car on right side wheel :d

I have been in Germany since 6 years. But originaly, I am from Palestine.

[GeorgeM]

One of the biggest dangers is in areas where there is little traffic.

In cities where there are lots of other cars on the road it's easy to take your clues from them.

Pulling out from a rest stop in a deserted part of the country there may be no clues for quite a while until you go round a corner on the wrong side and ...

I've managed to drive on the wrong side of the road for a couple of hundred yards whilst coming out of petrol stations in both France and Oman - in the latter almost in the middle of town but at midday when everything was quiet.

In many rest stops or pull-ins in tourist areas in NZ they have markings on the road (arrows) to show which side of the road you're supposed to be on.

[jubjub]

My advice would be start off with an automatic car, its one less thing to worry about, and they seem quite popular here.

When abroad ourselves, we hire automatics, and hubby has just reminded me, as long as, you , the driver, are postioned in the middle of the road, then you should be fine.

[xanctus]

you will get confused for 10 mins maybe after that you will be absolutely fine, but better way to get used to with it is that driving in the city and go to highway for longer time, that way it'll make you get the idea of the direction and feels.

[Buyio]

Heard the driving is nuts in NZ...I am used to the crazy drivers from here, but dont know if I'll adapt to right wheel driving :laugh maybe I'll stop driving crazy? is this tha thing that will cool me down? :D
Anyway HOW crazy can you drive with a right site wheel? :raebanana

[xanctus]

driving is nuts in NZ? hmmm I didn't find it that way... :D maybe I was in the right place, in the right time :D:D

[jubjub]

driving is nuts in NZ? hmmm I didn't find it that way... :D maybe I was in the right place, in the right time :D:D

Must have been! Lost count the amount of times I have been badly cut up, or had to sharply brake on the motorway due to madcap lane changes