Day 7

Drive on the Left, Look Right

There are no intersection lights in the village I have lived in for a quarter century. For us, a busy intersection is hitting a stop sign before someone else has pulled away, requiring we stop twice. On the open road, we occasionally find ourselves behind a "local" driver, which you can take here as a disparaging label bordering on name calling. Such people require us to slow down to a safe speed comfortably under the speed limit. I say this despite the fact that I have been around long enough to be considered local, however much I may still fancy myself an outsider.

Or, because I live in countryside where the Amish have farms and communities, I frequently find myself slowing for little black buggies on the back roads. Well, to be honest, all the roads are "back roads," but that is my point. For a country boy like me, any real traffic requires adjustment. So, going off to London presents certain road "challenges."

Received wisdom in America is that the British practice of driving on the left creates two problems: one is learning to look right instead of left for on-coming traffic and the other is driving on what for us is the awkward side of the car. These are not unique problems for Americans; many other countries drive on the right, that is to say, correct, side of the road.

That the British drive where they do and with as much ease and instinct is, perhaps, a further reason to admire the British mind. A little voice in the head seems to say, "They are superior, you know."

In our two and a half weeks here, the traffic problem seems to me not so much that vehicles drive opposite as that drivers are always apparently in a hurry and they show up at the precise instant you step into the street. Sometimes they seem to appear out of nowhere, even after you have looked right/left/right/left/right as required by mothers everywhere. A trip anywhere with my wife involves one of us grabbing a sleeve to pull the other back from the brink of collision. We call these "near death" experiences.

One conclusion I have drawn is that the "look right" advice is essentially irrelevant. Or at least insufficient. Speed, as I have already indicated, is a bigger danger. Speed and the tendency of drivers to do the in-and-out lane change. The in-and-out combined with the out-and-around keep the stakes high. Drivers have a sense of privilege everywhere, but one senses that here maybe more than other places drivers are primitive and primal. Shut the door on that little motorized capsule and an ordinarily gentle soul turns feral.

And then there are the narrow roads. One of the strangest experiences I have had so far is to have a bus pass within inches of my arm as I walked along the sidewalk next to the curb. It is surprising at first. It has made me jump, although the jumping demonstrates just how slow reaction is to these dangers -- you jump after the bus passes. This, too, feels like a near death experience.

None of this is frightening, I have found. In fact, the sudden rush of a double-decker blowing past my shoulder is, I hesitate to suggest, exhilirating. As a parent and teacher I do not have to tell you that my reactions in themselves raise concern. Am I at risk of becoming a danger junkie? Will I find myself some weeks into this London experience daring traffic with ever more risky attempts to walk on the edge, to cross ever more daring though invisible lines? Am I the pedestrian daredevil?

To counter my little secret, I advise my charges to be cautious, to pay attention, to stay on the curb until the little green man replaces the little red man.

Be a good pedestrian and live longer.

And forget driving. I am going to do everyone a favor and ride the bus.