Did you know that the roads in Wellington are very steep and they wind like mountain roads and they are small? Also they drive on the "wrong" side of the road on the "wrong" side of the car.
The past few weeks, in being a useful, helpful niece I have been driving a lot and so now I drive on crazy roads on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road. It has been quite the experience trying to wrap my head around it all. I consider myself a pretty confident and competent driver but all that was almost too much for me. Luckily my aunt is very patient and the traffic isn't too crazy on most of the roads. I figured that I could probably have pretty easily have dealt with EITHER the roads OR the different side but both at the same time was a little overwhelming. The biggest things I've noticed are that the right hand side mirror is my new best friend because it's the closest mirror to where I expect the rear-view mirror to be. I'm also pretty good at using the turn signal and not the windshield wipers which live where I expect the turn signal to be... Surprisingly I've been able to refrain from hitting the door when reaching for the gear shift, but I do find that I frequently get my arms in weird crosses when turning and shifting at the same time. The other thing that I've noticed is a marked failure of spatial awareness to the passenger side of the car, I've been doing a good job not hitting the cars parked on the sides of the road but when a car is coming on one side and there are cars parked and I'm going around a turn I get a little worried. I'm getting more used to it since I keep driving so that's good. I've definitely been trying to remember learning to drive in the first place so I can figure out how I learned the spatial awareness and movements of arms so as to not get tangled. AND THEN there are roundabouts everywhere and my signaling skills around those are sadly lacking. So many things to learn but I feel improvement and I'm enjoying it more so who knows, maybe I'll soon become an ambidextrous driver!
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XP: Number of kilometers on my aunt's car: 210210
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Oh my god. The roundabouts are the WORST! That's when I'd almost get nailed. Being on the "wrong" side of the road is one thing, but then when you have to figure out WHEN to pop out of the circle and on which side of the road. OY!
ReplyDeleteWhen Aunt Shelby and I were driving around there, on curvy mountain roads on the south island, the passenger always felt like the driver was going to run off the side of the road, and the driver was pushing that direction for fear of being too close to the middle. ~AJ
Glad you had someone else take the photo instead of you taking a selfie while driving on the left side from the right side down under. Whew, that's a lot of wrongs making a right :)
ReplyDeleteThink about the synapses being developed in your quarter-century old brain!!
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the turn signal/windshield wiper thing!
~Muz