Overseas Driving

If you planning on travelling overseas to the United States, Europe, or Canada, you need to be prepared to drive on the opposite side of the road than what you are used to.  With careful planning and a lot of concentration, you can easily navigate the roads of another country without problems. 

If you land in a foreign country and hire a rental car, you are immediately faced with the reality of driving on the opposite side of the road.  When visiting the United States and Canada, you will be driving a vehicle on the right-hand side of the road with the driver’s seat, steering wheel, and pedals on the left-hand side of the car.  This will seem strange at first, but with patience, you will get used to it.  Regardless of what the car you drive looks like or which side the steering wheel is on, always check out the fluids and tire pressure before you off on a trip.  Vehicles overseas have the same dipsticks for checking oil, compartment for distributing gas, and so on.

Make sure you pay attention to the many different road signs in the country you are in.  The pictures on the traffic signs are usually all you need to understand the message the country is trying to convey.  Traffic lights are different in each country, with amber meaning to go with caution, in most places.  One of the biggest differences between driving in the United Kingdom and the United States is the way pedestrian crossing systems work.  In the UK, when approaching a crossing you are expected to slow down and stop if there are pedestrians in the walkway.  The pedestrian crossings in the United States are not like this, so you need to be aware of people crossing the road at traffic lights.