Driving in South Africa – Here’s the order of difficulty
- First time driving in foreign country – France 2016. Thankfully, with a good navigator and a bit of time to work out my nerves, the experience was only mildly traumatic and with additional visits, should be doable – again with a good navigator
- Driving in Barbados – In this case, it was a challenge to drive on the left side – I could not gauge the right side of the car very well – and with narrow streets, I found the curb or gutter far too often. Added with a few driving on the wrong sides and I wasn’t sure I would ever try again.
- But alas, I took a chance and rented a car in south Africa and drove from Johannesburg to Kruger, Mapundgwe, and back to Johannesburg. It was surprisingly easy with a few exceptions:
- I don’t like turning right (across traffic at Ts)
- I found it tough to sort out how to navigate round-abouts (going around clockwise was disconcerting and since I am not all that good at it anyway!).
- I’m not used the dashed white lines in single roadways – when you drive for a while and don’t see any other cars, it’s easy to think that the right lane is a fast lane – nope its for on coming cars – yikes! I didn’t make this error, but I don’t like the feeling that I could.
- Finally, first thing in the AM, I almost always got in on the wrong side, sat down and wondered where the steering wheel was OR drive on the wrong side because I didn’t see other cars and forget where I was. No real traumas here, but I did drive on a dirt road for 20 min on the wrong side and wonder why there was an on coming car in my lane. 0.5sec later, I was in the left lane and appropriately startled.
Two weeks later I was driving others in vans and didn’t have any problems – I stayed close to the lead car to avoid any challenges and found no problems.
Summary: I am getting comfortable with the left side – and better, I have noticed a change in thinking – it’s not the right or wrong, or left or right side, its’ the driver is on the inside of the road to avoid crossing over into the other lane. With this bit of paradigm shift, I am comfortable driving almost anywhere where few cars, rule-following driving, and “readable” road signs.
So, I am going to avoid Japan and China, where I can’t read any signs. Countries where lanes are meaningless, traffic lights are seen as suggestions, and scooter and cars share the road in challenging ways! J