Driving in England WITHOUT taking driving lessons?

Someone posted an article on here a while back about a young man who flew in from the US on business and then drove from Newcastle to London while jetlagged, ended up on the wrong side of a single carriageway and killed 3 men. I think the article said he was imprisoned for 2 years. So yeah, you could be imprisoned if you kill someone, but I imagine the guilt of having done so would far outweigh the consequences. 

As I said before, not to put you off, but if you are going to drive here on your American licence when you first arrive, it would be wise to study up on the different signs and roadmarkings and other information in the Highway Code, just to be sure you know what is what and aren't in any danger of hurting yourself or others by making a dangerous assumption or mistake. It's not to say that people don't come over here and drive right away without any problems, but I think it's good to be prepared when you are driving in an unfamiliar environment. Good luck with whatever you decide!

Someone posted an article on here a while back about a young man who flew in from the US on business and then drove from Newcastle to London while jetlagged, ended up on the wrong side of a single carriageway and killed 3 men.

I think you are conflating two cases. Martin Crew, said to be jetlagged, "veered onto the wrong side of the road" and killed a young woman coming the other way. He got 14 months. Nathan Doud got onto a two-lane road which he believed was a dual carriageway because of the broken central line, which denotes a dual carriageway in the U.S. His sentence was 20 months. (Something I don't quite get - surely if he had kept in the left lane of what he thought was a "dual carriageway", as is required except when overtaking, he would have still have been in the correct lane?)

Drivers, American or otherwise, are not automatically imprisoned if they are involved in an incident in which a person or persons are killed or injured. There would have to be a very strong element, provable in court, of carelessness or recklessness, or as with the guy who drove into and injured the parking attendant, (3 months) deliberate intention. It would appear that things like deciding to drive while in a fatigued or jetlagged state or failing to familiarize yourself with e.g. the rules of the road, lane markings, etc, prior to driving could well satisfy the carelessness criterion.

I think it's good to be prepared when you are driving in an unfamiliar environment.

I would put it another way and say that it would be very stupid and if an accident happened, possibly criminally stupid for a person NOT to do this.

I think you are conflating two cases. 

I would put it another way and say that it would be very stupid and if an accident happened, possibly criminally stupid for a person NOT to do this.

Yes, I think it was the second case I remembered reading about. And yes, I agree what I said was an understatement. It is imperative to familiarize yourself with the law before driving in an unfamiliar environment, in my opinion.

A couple of points I forgot to mention - Martin Crew had his 2 kids in the car with him, and of course, it goes without saying that those kids and Crew and Doud are very lucky they are alive today. Head-on collisions tend to have fatal outcomes, which is a good reason to prepare very thoroughly indeed when taking the road in a country where they drive on "the other side of the road"!

I [...] give umbrage to the sentiment

take umbrage at the sentiment

take umbrage at the sentiment

Give over, man. This isn't grammar school! 

Give over, man. This isn't grammar school! 

Sorry, I must have my pedant head on today.

One more thing to think about is that you'll be in the city centre right? And parking can be a HUGE pain in the rear in Manchester city centre Or at least very expensive.  And the buses are plentiful. And cheap. Honestly, unless you were planning trips to places (and even then, I'd check out trains), I don't think you really need to have a car in the city--it's super easy (and fun, actually) to walk and the public transportation is excellent. Plus, bits of the city are under construction right now (one of the main roads actually...) and that makes driving in it a real PITA at the moment.
It's totally up to you, but, yeah, I'd wait on the car--get to know the city on foot and by bus a bit--it will DEFINITELY help you navigate later!