02-April-08 Driving in UK

It's all about the roundabouts. Similar to what you find in Massachusetts and a few places, the UK has (and is infamous about) roundabouts. You basically have 3-4 streets coming together.....there's a circle that you enter in going clockwise, and then go around and exit off whichever street you need to take. And if for some reason, you miss the street you need, you just continue in the roundabout (keep going in circles) until you come around to it. The great thing....if you're going the wrong direction on a street......head up to the next roundabout, go around in the circle and head back the way you started.

And there is quite a process for who has right-of-way......but the basic premise is that if you are already in the roundabout, you get priority.....and if there's a car in the roundabout headed toward you, you don't enter until there's a sufficient gap to enter without impacting traffic.

Of course, the big thing about driving in the UK is driving on the left hand side of the road. Which you can get used to quite quickly......but whenever there's a suddent movement or I have to react quickly, my first instinct is to immediately pull to the right, not to the left. It is that ingrained into your head. And also, the driver of the car (and steering wheel) are on the right hand side of the car. If you have a manual transmission, that means you are shifting gears with your left hand......I have found out how uncoordinated I am doing that.