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Switching between LHD and RHD cars


Barry

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Interested in hearing how people who do/have done it, find switching between LHD and RHD cars and vice versa. 

I drove RHD my whole life, only ever drove a handful of LHD cars before I came to UAE around the garage and never on the road. I thought changing gear with the other hand would be difficult but it came surprisingly naturally. The main problem I had was I had a habit of looking over my left shoulder to reverse. A couple of times here I’ve started reversing then look over my left shoulder only to see the seat belt and B pillar. A bit of practice cured that though. The other problem I had was when turning into car parks I would try to go in the wrong entrance. Again a bit of practice cured that. Now sometimes I wonder how it will be when I go home for a holiday. Will it come naturally or will I have to retrain my brain and think about what I’m doing. I guess the best solution is to save my pocket money and buy a McLaren F1 😂

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Never had an issue switching between LHD and RHD as long as there was a divider on the road. The bigger problem for me was while crossing the road as pedestrian. I would always look in the wrong direction to find that the road was completely empty and then realise to turn the other way. 😋Had a couple of narrow misses as well.

Edited by skumar83
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Yes I’ve done that before. First time I went to Europe I looked right then started crossing the road then when I was halfway across a car was coming towards me. Had a couple of narrow misses too. 

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Yes I’ve done that before. First time I went to Europe I looked right then started crossing the road then when I was halfway across a car was coming towards me. Had a couple of narrow misses too. 
You mention Europe as if UK was never a part of it. Guess Brexit was already in place before it actually happened.

But I get your point that the rest of Europe is LHD.
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When I say Europe, I mean mainland Europe. The UK were always pretty non conformist when it came to the union. They wouldn’t switch to Euros and cried until they got to keep their own currency and cried again against all the laws that were passed, even if they were for the greater good of all member states. Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to stay in the EU but we were dragged out of it by the English vote. Nothing good will come of it. The days of the British empire are long gone and they fail to see it. Maybe the only good thing that will come out of this is that the UK will eventually break up. Scotland will have its own independence and occupied Northern Ireland will be reunified with the Republic of Ireland and England will be left stewing in its own pride wondering what went wrong. 

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I think the bigger question is why just a handful of countries refuse to give up on RHD? Imagine how much easier it would be for the car and parts manufacturers. UK dont get a lot of cars specially American muscle because they don't do RHD. We don't get a lot of Jap cars because they don't do RHD in some of their models. 

Just like US refuses to join the rest of the world by not having the metric system. Ever watched an American DIY video and were left wondering what size would a 17/28" spanner would be in the normal world? 

UK being the middle child with half metric and half imperial Oh and RHD.

As for the OT yeah I had a car stop inches from my legs because I looked the wrong way and crossed the street ( also see a lot of new expats do the same here though! ) and drove LHD just a little. First time going into a LHD roundabout had me go all wonky in the head!!! 

 

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