empeg meet 2011 - my grand plan

Greetings all

Finally I will again be attending the owners meet! It's been some years. I went to Amersfoort in 2005 with my Focus ST170 (the one with the bullet cam in the grille)

I'm taking my wife and our 8 months old baby girl and our Mondeo for quite a drive (http://tinyurl.com/5r9jxv3).

Our plan is to start from our house on tuesday @ 5.30 in the morning. First stop is the ferry taking us from Norway to Denmark. From there we will go to Flensburg in Germany.

On wednesday the plan is to go to Münster, on thursday to the area around Calais, and on friday we'll go to Wareham. The reason for the slow pace is that we have little experience driving in Europe with the baby. To avoid her getting really difficult, we'd rather stay an extra night on the way.

I have only one worry... driving in England with my left hand drive car. I'm not looking forward to the first roundabout. I have ordered Eurolites to put on the headlights, so the car is good to go.

Then we'll spend the weekend in Wareham with all the empeggers

We were to late booking a room at the venue, so we'll stay at the Premier Inn, Poole. Unfortunately I think the wife must stay in Poole on saturday. The party starts at 5, and we need to get the little one in bed by 7. We could use the baby call - but the transmit range is 300 meters...

On monday we'll leave Wareham/Poole for Amsterdam. We'll stay there a couple of days, and then slowly make it home stopping whereever we find it interesting.

I'm really looking forward to this. See you in Wareham!

When I drove "on the wrong side of the road" in Europe, I used to put a large sticker with a black arrow pointing to the correct side of the road to drive on in my line of sight on the dashboard. Always worked!

Don't worry, if I can manage a 36-year-old, 3.5 ton totally-square-box left hand drive truck with absolutely no rearward visibility on UK roads, you should manage in a car

To give an idea:

Pretty sure other drivers will just get out of the way if you were driving that thing on the wrong side of the road :-)

The problem is that on twisty country lanes, they just don't have the time to get out of the way

Ooops! Sorry, didn't see you!!

When looking for some advice before driving a left-hand drive car in Europe. A friend of mine gave me a simple tip. As long as you (the driver) are the one nearest to the middle of the road, then you're okay. So, I suppose in your case you just need to remember that as long as you're the one nearest the side of the road then you're okay. It worked for me.

As long as there's other traffic on the road you won't have a problem with roundabouts, I was worried too, but it's completely intuitive once you're faced with one.

Great advice - except if you keep switching between LHD and RHD vehicles and LHD and RHD traffic as independent variables

Surely with your landrovers you can just keep the centre of the vehicle to the centre of the road and let everyone else worry about the finer details of positioning

I think driving on the "wrong side" of the road is one of those things you worry about before you do it, then when you are doing it you realise that in about 30 seconds you've forgotten about it and it seems natural.

Cheers

Cris

Until about 5 days into the holiday when I are so relaxed about it you realise your brain has switched to automatic and positioned you on the wrong side of the road heading quickly towards a large truck

Well, I just use a fairly simple algorithm, which boils down to 'drive on the opposite of the road to oncoming traffic'.

Seems to have worked so far

pca

Once I had mastered staying on the correct side of the road I noticed I had problems with backing the vehicle up.

Normally I'd look over my shoulder through the center of the car. In opposite land this means I'd bash my head into glass.
Even when I turned my head the right way, my brain was misfiring on the signal input. It was strange. It was like I couldn't 'see'.

Forwards is easy- that's just 'monkey see, monkey do'. Gets a little tricky when there are no other monkeys around, though.

I love the challenge of driving in odd places, though. I love to get lost and find my way back again. The Dales were great for that. More than once I drove over Hardknott Pass for fun. That's an adventure for anyone, right there!

Usually SWMBO corrects me once each day, just as we pull out onto the first road of the day. After that I'm fine.

Except for emergency maneuvers, when quick reflexes and instinct tend to pull me (and the vehicle) rapidly to the right-hand side of the road (oops).

Got that once as we were driving up a track near the crest of a hill, just as a local came down from the other side. We both stopped with millimetres to spare! The Kiwi just laughed it off when he discovered we were from Canada.

Cheers

Many great responses!

As long as there are cars around me I'll be fine. At night time I'll be drinking beer, so there will be no driving when the roads are empty, I guess.

I tried to find out why England decided to drive on the left side of the road. The reason seems to be that farmers back in the days had carriages with a seat/platform on the right side. When traffic increased it was natural to be hanging out on the right side to see the traffic in front, and keep the carriage to the left to see better.

I guess the rest of Europe built their carriages with the seat on the left side (exept for Sweden that drove on the left side of the road up until 1967).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic

It's supposed to come from the use of the sword hand: if you pass on the left side of the road (in your carriage or cart), then you are still free to draw with your sword-hand (the right, in most cases, unless you were a witch) to strike down any attacker who may be standing in the road or approaching head on....

Perversely, the English always joust with the short lance from the right hand side, so that the sword arm (the strong one) can direct the lance accurately across the body to the left-attacking opponent. Why? To hit the shield-protected left hand of his opponent, thereby giving him a sporting chance of survival. Of course.

Ils sont fou, les Anglais.