Driving on the wrong side of the road

Since my trip to New Zealand, I’ve been asked what it’s like to drive on the other side of the road. My short answer has, for some reason, been met with mixed reviews. Those of you who’ve driven on The Other Side, see if this checks out:

Imagine that you walk into a mirror, but it doesn’t break. Instead you pop through to the identical mirrored world on the other side, hop into a car and tootle off down the highway. Then you realize everything is backwards except you and everything’s insane. I think we all know what that feels like, right? Relatable stuff.

…I lost you, didn’t I. That description has earned blank stares from everyone but Alice and Jonathan Strange, so I’ll give you the long version:

Just looking
Parker and I hadn’t really planned to drive in New Zealand. Back home when Parker’s concerned sister had asked such unreasonable questions as “How will you be getting around again?” we’d answered with a breezy “Buses and trains and stuff. It’ll be great.”  Well, upon closer inspection, it turns out New Zealand isn’t Europe and where we wanted to go “buses and trains and stuff” weren’t a thing. So our friend Eldon took us to “just have a look” at a people mover (minivan) of some good friends.

The people mover in question.

— “Would you boys be interested in taking it for a test drive? You can drive it back to Eldon’s and keep it for the night?”

Well, to be honest, we were more interested in just kind of desperately clinging to the idea that an excellent national transit system would be spontaneously constructed overnight. To be honest we weren’t mentally prepared to test drive anything on the other side of the road in the busiest city in the country in daytime traffic. That sounded a bit like certain death. We definitely weren’t going to drive it. And we were going to hold our ground like good Americans.

Me: “Oh, no. That’s fine.”
Parker: “Yeah, we’re good.”
—“Really? We’d feel more comfortable if you took it for a drive.”
Me: “Yes, good idea.”
Parker: “Yeah, good.”

Flub.

So I was suddenly driving on the wrong side of the road through the country’s busiest city, in daytime traffic. I’m not sure how Parker weaseled out of driving. His role (saying “You’re running over stuff on this side again” repeatedly) seemed much more enjoyable.

Driving on the other side of the road wasn’t the worst bit. It was being on the other side of the car. Here’s what I didn’t expect:

The edges of the vehicle are not where they once were.
This is the driver’s version of when you hit puberty and grow three feet and your arms are weird and too long and you knock over glasses at the kitchen table.

If this looks normal to you you may actually be upside down. Speak to your doctor immediately.

 

• To your left: where there ought to be a car door there’s this massive, gaping space. And then there’s another whole car seat, with a person in it. And then—waaay off in the distance—is the car door. And further over still are your left tires. Nobody knows exactly where over there they are or what they’re doing but they seem to be getting on well with the rumble strips.
• To your right: the right car door, by contrast, is all up in your grill. If it could breathe it would be breathing down your neck and if it could talk it would be a close talker.

Oncoming traffic is on the right.
Inches away from your right ear, cars whip by at a speed that should be impossible, rocking your vehicle. An ill-informed part of your brain still insists this space out the window to the right is where the rest of your car is, and flips out every time something drives right through it. The inner narrative is something like “Hey, car’s coming. It’s really close. Hey. HEY. HEY GOLEFTGOLEFT WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE—Oh. False alarm. False alarm, sorry guys. …Hey, car’s coming.”

“…It’s really close this time. I swear.”

Who’s driving that car?
What’s even trickier than getting used to the fact that you now sit on the other side of the car is the fact that everyone else does too. It’s like you have to train you brain for the same adjustment in every little scenario. As a backseat passenger, when two people are sitting up front and the one on the left suddenly cranes around to talk to you, gesturing with both hands free, your first impulse is bellow something unintelligible and to brace for impact, not to remember that that’s the passenger you’re speaking with. It’s an even stranger sensation when you see the same thing happen in an oncoming car.

The four “gotcha” moments:
Every time you screw one of these four things up, imagine the car yells “Gotcha!” at you. Because the car is a jerk now.

• Shifting
  You do not shift with your right hand; you repeatedly stub your fingers against the car door with your right hand. You shift with your left hand. Your left hand also manages the A/C and radio. Meanwhile your right hand is behind the times and will be having a jolly old time slapping the window.

Backwards.

• Turn signals
  Every time you go for your turn signal, you’ll get the melodious screech of your windshield wipers going off instead. If you’re lucky you’ll also flood the windshield with wiper fluid and conveniently won’t be able to see while turning. Good luck.

• Windshield wipers
  Not ones to be left out, whenever you mean to use your windshield wipers you will trigger your turn signal instead.* Hopefully the folks behind you will interpret your spastic blinking of lights to mean “Hello. It’s raining. Also I can’t see.”

*Note: Depending on the vehicle, the blinkers/wipers might not be reversed after all. So as soon as you get it straight be sure to try someone else’s car and enjoy starting all over again.

• Reversing
  Good driving habits say when reversing you put your right arm over the passenger’s seat so you can twist around to properly see behind you. But on this side of the world good driving habits say you just smacked your elbow into the window, punched the turn signal with your recoil, and now you’ve set off the stupid windshield wipers again with your other arm.

Put it all together and you have a real-life Mike’s New Car scenario.

Other burning questions
Things I didn’t think of until driving down the highway:

Which lane is the fast lane?
Which side do you pass on?
When you get to the end of a cul-de-sac and need to pull a U-turn, which way do you turn?
Crossing the street: is it left-right-left or right-left-right? Because I feel like I’m doing it wrong-right-wrong.

(Answers: Right. Right. Left. Right-left-right, and good luck keeping this straight once you get back home.)

The unfortunate case of the front left tyre
Believe it or not I managed all that quite well in the test drive. Other than a bit of foliage, nothing died, no incidents. Except for when I was following our friend Eldon to his house, and he navigated quite nimbly through this deal, where the road narrows to to control speed:

If the curb on the left there looks a little bit evil that’s because it is.

The thing is, it only controls your speed if you know it’s supposed to control your speed. I was hurrying through after Eldon, and there was a car coming at me on my right for the first time ever, and so  I made sure to give pleeeenty of room to him on my right side. …Meanwhile I clobbered the curb full throttle on the left side and popped the front left tire. Test drive over. Yes, we’d love to buy your people mover. And a new tire.

R.I.P., Front Left. I hardly knew ye.

In conclusion
So that’s driving on the other side.

But don’t take my word for it. Go to New Zealand. Or, if you have exceptional core strength and a periscope, you can always simulate a similar level of disorientation by driving around while standing on your head.* Upside down is the new backwards.

*I’m obligated to advise you that you should not, of course, try this at home. There’s far too many breakable things in your home. Instead, try this outside.