The few, the brave - those of us taking driving lessons right now!

See, that's interesting. I don't think I've ever really thought about how the stress of learning (a million!) new things could sharpen anxieties I already had--i.e. driving in the city. (Give me a tractor rather than a bus to deal with anyday!).

Although it doesn't change the fact that I miss my little automatic. I enjoy driving manual (it feels very vroom! vroom!), but I DID like to fiddle with things/drink coffee in the car, and I'm just not coordinated to do anything but shift and steer.

Although it doesn't change the fact that I miss my little automatic. I enjoy driving manual (it feels very vroom! vroom!), but I DID like to fiddle with things/drink coffee in the car, and I'm just not coordinated to do anything but shift and steer.

I loved driving manual in the states, but don't like it here. I'm right handed, so it's far easier to shift with my right hand than my left.

I loved driving manual in the states, but don't like it here. I'm right handed, so it's far easier to shift with my right hand than my left.

Could you drink coffee and drive? (Can you tell that I miss my Starbucks on the road?  )

And, slightly more on topic, congrats on passing the theory! I hope everyone else is doing well in their lessons and studying!

Oh, any AyouBob, you are crazy!  I wish I was more like you and could look at it as being loads of fun. I'm not sure I ever will think of driving as fun again.  :\\\'(

lol Ayou is Burmese for crazy, and my CB handle (omg am I revealing my age?) was CrazyBob
But anyway I don't drive like that. Well, not nowadays. Driving is fun. My dd started driving a few years back and has been on her own now for a year and says she absolutely loves it.

If you liked crusing back home, you'll love getting out and driving around the gorgeous country side or along the spectacular coasts, going where YOU want to go and not where DH wants to go. It'll be fun again. Don't fret.

 You've got a head start on those that have never driven a stick. You'll soon get used to shifting with the other hand. How do I know, cuz when I first ever went back home (a long time ago), I kept trying to shift with the window roller upper thingy (see it was a long time ago - manual windows! haha I still have manual windows in all 4 windows). But anyway, talk about feel dumb. Vroom we're off in 1st all nice and smooth, a quickly executed change to 2nd, let the clutch out - oh sh*t still in first, hey what's going on here? DW looking at me like wtf are you doing?! The left arm was reprogramed.

You do have to be a bit more alert here as it isn't the laid back cruising like we're used to back home. I love switching mode when I go back for a visit - First I get an automatic, then take the lead out of my shoe and leave it at home, adjust the seat for a slight, very slight, pimp position, tune the radio to the 24-hour Rock channel, get the shades on and sit back and cruise. The whole 5 minutes to the majik-market for a barq's!

(it feels very vroom! vroom!)

 

I wonder if some of this a country vs city issue?  I know that, growing up in farm country (I lived across from a 400 acre vegetable farm!), I, ahem, used to drive quite quickly on our narrow winding roads and never, ever think about it.  (This was in SoCal).  So, although the country speed limit seems excessive here in the UK, it's not *really* that much faster than we all used to drive on those types of roads in the US. (Except for the various people who would go out for a "weekend drive" and go 30 or less while being passed by tractors). It might be that the country is so much closer to everyone now (no huge swathes of suburbs to go through?) that you're running into it earlier/more. It's weird, because I feel *more* comfortable out on the country roads, for sure.

I learned to drive in rural Tennessee, and the roads are very much like here -- with the crucial difference that there's almost nobody on them. It was so unusual to pass another car you'd wave, and then check them out to see if you knew them.

People did drive like loonies on those roads -- I was so sure some nutcase neighbor flying down a gravel track was going to punch my ticket some day.

Here, these windy tracks are the main roads in and out of town. We're near the Channel tunnel, so they're slinging huge double lorries around, getting on the wrong side of everything and taking chunks out of the medieval gates. There are tenez la gauche signs to remind people from the Continent to drive on the left. Oh, it's a mess.

I was chatting with a neighbor the other day who was recently in an accident nearby. She came around the corner, and another woman was on her side of the road. I asked if she steered into the ditch. She said no -- she figured if she dumped the car in the ditch, the insurance company would regard it as a single car accident and her fault. So she just scraped down the side of the other woman's car.

I've got pretty good reflexes for an old broad, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't think my way through that whole chain of ideas in the nanosecond you get to react to such a thing.

I was chatting with a neighbor the other day who was recently in an accident nearby. She came around the corner, and another woman was on her side of the road. I asked if she steered into the ditch. She said no -- she figured if she dumped the car in the ditch, the insurance company would regard it as a single car accident and her fault. So she just scraped down the side of the other woman's car.

I've got pretty good reflexes for an old broad, but I'm pretty sure I couldn't think my way through that whole chain of ideas in the nanosecond you get to react to such a thing.

Funny as me and DD were just discussing this very scenario as she had a near miss with one these big 4x4s on a country road the day before. And I said that that if you steered into the ditch...    ...better off scraping/hitting them.
 We both said but could you? Neither of us thought we could. Your instincts would put you in the ditch.

Could you drink coffee and drive? (Can you tell that I miss my Starbucks on the road?  )

And, slightly more on topic, congrats on passing the theory! I hope everyone else is doing well in their lessons and studying!

I did, while smoking a cigarette, shifting, and driving. It was all so easy then. *Sigh*

Your instincts would put you in the ditch.

Most of the roads here don't even have a ditch. It's either giant hedges or trees on the side of the road. Your best bet would be to hit the other car than the tree or a massive hedge, but chances are your reflexes would have you hit the tree. At least mine would.


The problem is, I need to just stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with it. It isn't like driving in America, nor is it ever going to be. And I'm never going to live in America again, at least as far ahead as I can see, so no point in looking in the rearview mirror. (Pun intended. ) I will just have to buck up and forget about all those lovely wide straight roads with hard shoulders and learn to embrace these little country roads. I do love the scenery, but I certainly don't appreciate it while I am driving at this point in time, but hopefully one day I will, once I become more confident and relax a bit. It's funny that navigating through all the parked cars used to feel like my biggest challenge but now that seems so easy because I can go slooooow. It's the places where I am supposed to speed up that get me.

Most of the roads here don't even have a ditch. It's either giant hedges or trees on the side of the road.

Oh god we got some ditches up here. Deep ditches. You can't see the bottom ditches. OK that ain't true but if the car went in, it'd be sticking up in the air.

Wonder why? All the rain we get up here?

And I'm never going to live in America again, at least as far ahead as I can see, so no point in looking in the rearview mirror. (Pun intended. )

 

but now that seems so easy because I can go slooooow. It's the places where I am supposed to speed up that get me.

As I told my daughter, you pay road tax just like everybody else, you got a license just like everybody else, you're just as entitled to be on the road just like everybody else just say F 'em and do not feel intimidated to go faster than you are comfortable.

We're out on Romney Marsh, so it's criss-crossed with wet ditches (which they unpoetically call sewers). So it's hedges in some places, stone walls in some and sewers in others. Still, my instinct will *always* be to avoid the head-on collision as the worst of all possible evils.

Ha!  I love all the descriptions! 

Driving on country roads in Iowa and Georgia was nothing at all like driving "in the slot" or "in the trenches" as I call the lanes leading to my in-laws house in Devon: high hedge (dirt mounds with hedge on top) that you can't see over on both sides, road exactly the width of one car with "passing places" (slight widenings where there is a gate to a field), continuous S curves with blind corners everywhere, cars/buses/campers hurtling towards you at 60 mph and creeping up your tail if you don't play along, sudden tractors or sheep in the road, kids vomiting on the backseat as their bodies are thrown from side to side barely restrained by seatbelts.

Like Jennie, I perfected my parallel parking in San Francisco.  City driving in Atlanta and Chicago I can handle pretty well.  I'm not confident about my city driving here though.  It's getting easier, but like Jewlz I keep hoping that someday it will be more intuitive and not such an effort. For now I feel a real sense of accomplishment when I negotiate Cheltenham or Gloucester on my own to find a new place, or when I safely arrive at my brother-in-law's house in Kingston. 

Ha!  I love all the descriptions! 

Driving on country roads in Iowa and Georgia was nothing at all like driving "in the slot" or "in the trenches" as I call the lanes leading to my in-laws house in Devon: high hedge (dirt mounds with hedge on top) that you can't see over on both sides, road exactly the width of one car with "passing places" (slight widenings where there is a gate to a field), continuous S curves with blind corners everywhere, cars/buses/campers hurtling towards you at 60 mph and creeping up your tail if you don't play along, sudden tractors or sheep in the road, kids vomiting on the backseat as their bodies are thrown from side to side barely restrained by seatbelts.

Ha. This cracked me up because we went down to Devon to see friends, and I was terrified on those roads! Although it may have been a combination of DH's aggressive driving style PLUS the roads, but yeah--insane! No vomiting children, but I did need to close my eyes and concentrate on breathing for a bit so I wouldn't crack from the anxiety!

Ha!  I love all the descriptions! 

Driving on country roads in Iowa and Georgia was nothing at all like driving "in the slot" or "in the trenches" as I call the lanes leading to my in-laws house in Devon: high hedge (dirt mounds with hedge on top) that you can't see over on both sides, road exactly the width of one car with "passing places" (slight widenings where there is a gate to a field), continuous S curves with blind corners everywhere, cars/buses/campers hurtling towards you at 60 mph and creeping up your tail if you don't play along, sudden tractors or sheep in the road, kids vomiting on the backseat as their bodies are thrown from side to side barely restrained by seatbelts.

I'd say that was pretty descriptive.    I dunno know why but your spewing kids being tossed about like rag dolls brought images of a mad Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car journey through the quaint rolling English countryside involving a mixture of Wilt (Tom Sharp), The Simpsons and Malcolm in the middle all topped with a Mr. Bean/Flying Nun sauce

Ha! When we fling around the country lanes with the top down, we hum the theme from The Avengers. Seems like Emma Peel was always tootling around some sheep track in that little Lotus of hers, doesn't it?

Ok, I might have been exaggerating a little.    There have been moments though...

I'd say that was pretty descriptive.    I dunno know why but your spewing kids being tossed about like rag dolls brought images of a mad Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car journey through the quaint rolling English countryside involving a mixture of Wilt (Tom Sharp), The Simpsons and Malcolm in the middle all topped with a Mr. Bean/Flying Nun sauce

Driving lesson again tonight. *Sigh.* I just kind of want it to be over now. Or sometimes I want to quit. But then, I'm past the first part of the exams, and I've already had 5 90- minute lessons, so it's a bit late for that. I just want to get through the test and get on with my life. Maybe if I can get through a few more lessons it will be enough.