Driving a british car

[C5]

This is a question for our UK friends here.

I may have to drive a car in the UK, and I'd like to know exactly what differences they have with a continental car (apart from the steering wheel being on the right of course), especially as far as the pedals and the gear are concerned (since I can get used to grab the gear lever with my left hand but could find it harder if the pedals order is not the same).
On a continental car, the pedals are, from left to right, the clutch, the brake, and the accelerator. The gears on the gear lever (assuming it's a manual gear car, of course), are : first gear, top left; second gear, bottom left; third gear, top middle; fourth gear, bottom middle; fifth gear, top right. Reverse can change from a car to another.
Is it the same on UK cars, or is everything reversed ? And sorry if this is a dumb question...

[Renny]

Hi

You should be ok. Steering wheel is on the right, of course.
Pedals are the same, from left to right; clutch, brake and accelerator. Gears are in the same position you described, starting with first gear, top left and so on.

Just out of interest, where are you visiting while in the UK?

Happy motoring!

Regards

Renny

[C5]

Thanks a lot for the answers.

I'll be spending a few days in London and Sheffield with my GF (who has a friend in Sheffield), and I might rent a car to make travels there easier.

Again, thanks for the info.

[JonA]

I must say it's quite refreshing that someone in the continent is doing their research before they come here. If only the British would do the same. I drive on the continent quite often and have gotten used to it. But there are some who just jump on a ferry/train and go to France and just don't have a clue.

I once followed a British car through Calais from te ferry and they were doing fine. Driving on the right and all that. It all went to hell at the first roundabout they came to and what do they do? - go around it clockwise as opposed to anti-clockwise!! Luckily it was about four in the morning and no-one else was coming around the roundabout - but I did pull them over and give them a quick polite lesson. The chap hadn't a clue what he'd done wrong until I pointed it out.

Anyway C5. A bit of advice for driving in the UK that the travel guides won't tell you. Watch out for speed cameras! They are everywhere and hidden very well. The UK Government in it's infinite wisdom and in attempt to make driving highly un-enjoyable and costly, decided that local police forces and local authorities get the entire revenue from speeding fines generated by speed cameras. As such there has recently been a massive increase in their number (as they a superb cash cow) and the tactics they employ are downright immoral (IMHO) but sadly not illegal.

The ones in London and all the main roads in and out of the Greater London area have very little allowance on their trigger speed - 10% of the speed limit plus 1mph. Eg: 34 in a 30 etc. The ones on the motorway are little more leniant but don't what ever you do venture over 90mph (UK speed limit on motorways is 70mph) on the M1 or M40 (depending on what route you take to Sheffield) - the motorway speed cameras are nigh on impossible to see on those motoways. Finally - Sheffield has some funky new speed cameras which time you over a considerable distance. They're quite obvious but they work that they take one photo and then a duplicate camera a mile down the road takes another picture of your car. The time elapsed between the photos allows them to work out your average speed rather than the traditional cameras which are just traps. I believe you have similar average speed system (actually I know) which is used at the toll booths on your autoroutes.

Anyway - just a bit of advice from someone who's been the victim of Britain's Draconian Anti-Speeding Legislature and isn't BITTER about the ENTIRE situation at all. No. Not me. Never. Not at all.


NOT!!!

Jon "Fined £60 for doing 34mph in a 30mph zone" A

[Njxt]

Ah souvenir, souvenir ...
When I went to Ireland on vacations with my GF, a few years ago, we rented a car there and had thought a lot about driving "on the wrong side of the road" (no pun intended).
I drove for 4 days without incident except that one day, getting out of a gas station late at night (and tired ... not drunk ! ) I pull the car on the right side and drove like that for a mile or two .... until my GF realizes what was happening and screamed !
Luckily, it was late and in a semi desert countryside.
So, my point is, C5, beware of fatigue !
Your french reflexes will come back at warp speed if you don't pay too much attention.

[C5]

Thanks a lot for the additional advice, guys! I'll be sure to watch my speedometer (nice thing is, I won't have to do the conversion if I use an English car ).

Actually I already drove in England once, though it was onboard a French car. I thought I'd become sick the first time I drove on a roundabout (mind, I'm really easily carsick, but it very seldom happend when I'm driving).
And I agree about the fatigue part - after a bit too much driving in the middle of London, I found myself taking an intersection and suddenly facing a lot of cars waiting at the traffic light.

Anyway, thanks for the input!

[Calcoran]

Yup, watch out for the unusual situations. Standard traffic is usually all right after a few hundred meters, but as most said, as soon as you encounter some unforseen difficulty, your "right side of the road" reflexes take over while you mind tackles the problem, and the next thing you know you're facing a lot of angry car drivers who are not extremely happy about you being on their side of the road. That or an angry policeman.

Oh, and be careful about one strange thing when driving an UK car: you tend to forget that there's a lot more car on your left than you're used to. What I mean is that it seems you use the same distance between you and the left side of the road that you'd be using with a French car. If you're lucky, you're girlfriend will just scream from time to time when you get but a few inches away from a car/tree/wall. If you're not, you will hear a loud crash and wonder whatever happened .

[ComaBoy]

I was in the UK two weeks ago and had the forethought to rent a car with an automatic transmission. It made things a lot easier as on a trip a few years ago I kept smacking my right hand into the door while reaching for the shift

Oddly enough, while it does take some concentration, I haven't found driving on the wrong. . .er. . .opposite side of the road that difficult. (Then again the largest city I've driven in is Bristol). I did have to watch how far to the left side of the lane I was on, but other than that I think I did pretty well.

I wish I had read about speed limit enforcement before going over though. I think I spotted most of the cameras but since I didn't always know what the speed limit was, I had a tendency to, well, overdue. (It was a blast doing 80 to 90mph down the M4 however! )

Last, driving home from the airport here made me long to be back on British roads. Folks over there know how to drive, unlike here!

[JonA]

Originally posted by ComaBoy
Folks over there know how to drive, unlike here!

Yeah right!

We came third in the worst drivers league after Greece and Italy!

And France was fourth.

We may know how to drive but we have a severe road rage problem here. Us Brits to tend to be very aggressive behind the wheel.

Even I'm prone to using the odd curse at other drivers whilst out of the car I'm quite polite.

[ComaBoy]

Perhaps I just had a singularly good experience driving in the UK; I bow to your extensive experience however.

What I didn't encounter were:

Drivers who pull to within a few feet of your rear bumper at 70 mph and stay there until you get out of the way (This actually bothers me very little, I just keep driving, but my wife goes ballistic)

Drivers doing 20 mph on a highway because of a light rain

Drivers doing 20 mph down the highway for no good reason, and often in the passing lane

[Calcoran]

Originally posted by ComaBoy

Drivers who pull to within a few feet of your rear bumper at 70 mph and stay there until you get out of the way (This actually bothers me very little, I just keep driving, but my wife goes ballistic)

Boy, do I hate those!
Good thing the French politics are thinking about inflicting heavy fines to those not keeping safety distances (not sure how it's called in English), specially on the highway at 130(and a wee bit more ) kmph. I think the only problem here is that the police does not have any equipment to check them distances ... yet .

I for one am not sure speed is such a bad thing. All right, it's probably a bad thing because it pollutes more as long as it stays reasonable (like, doing 150 kmph on the highway or 100 on straight country roads) but I'd put it quite low on the scales of bad things (for instance, your chances of falling asleep at 100kmph on the highway are much higher than at 150). All right, maybe I should not have mentioned my opinions on this subject, it could get political pretty fast .

But those people who think 6 feet from the next car (with headlights on of course) is a safe distance when driving over 100 kmph ... I mean, do they still have a brain?

[cherub]

Originally posted by ComaBoy
(Then again the largest city I've driven in is Bristol).

Folks over there know how to drive, unlike here!

Yeah but the people of Bristol only ride cows (which go where THEY want to) and tractors (which don't go that fast!).... it being in the West Country an' all!

(watch the replies come flooding in!!)

[Robbert Raets]

Originally posted by ComaBoy Drivers who pull to within a few feet of your rear bumper at 70 mph and stay there until you get out of the way (This actually bothers me very little, I just keep driving, but my wife goes ballistic)

Heh. 'Bumper-Stickers' always tempt me to pound down on the break, but so far the risk of a collision has stopped me from providing such 'lessons'.....

[C5]

Hey, in France we have these "bumper stickers" too (nice name BTW - I had another nickname for them but it can be rather offensive for a certain category of men ). And some of them not only stick to you bumper, but also flash their light and can honk as well.
A minor vengeance I had for some time was to accelerate a lot, go back in the right lane (while the jerk behind did the same since I was running the same speed as him), then slow down to my nominal speed, thus forcing the jacka$$ to change lane again.
Of course, I stopped doing that the day I tried this trick with a Porsche. Acceleration doesn't mean the same thing for them...

Anyway, thanks to all you advices. I'll be putting them to use this very week end. We'll see how this turn out.