rec.autos.simulators

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

Gerry Aitke

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Gerry Aitke » Sun, 22 Sep 2002 16:39:30



> > Pub, as in just got back from...

> Drove back, no doubt, on the right side of the road :-)

Nah, taxi.
mach

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by mach » Sun, 22 Sep 2002 18:11:41


I believe it was NFS:PU that had an option to drive the "mirrored" versions of
the circuits, and when you did that, the traffic cars would be driving on the
left instead of the right... Maybe you could use that feature.

--
__________   ____---____       Marco Antonio  Checa  Funcke
\_________D /-/---_----'      Santiago de Surco, Lima, Peru
       _H__/_/                      http://machf.tripod.com
      '-_____|(    

remove the "no_me_j." and "sons.of." parts before replying

Goy Larse

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Goy Larse » Sun, 22 Sep 2002 19:09:01



> > Anybody know of a sim or tutor program for driving in England or other euro
> > countries that drive on the  left side of the road?  My company has to send a
> > couple of guys over there this winter and they want to get a car.....

> > ****
> > Eat well, stay fit, die anyway......

>     Midtown Madness has London as one of its modeled cities.

>     I concur with Goy: when I drove around in South Africa I had to
> be very careful for the first few days (like him I almost screwed up
> and started driving down a lane the wrong way!  Managed to detour
> right before the point-of-no-return...), but eventually it became
> second nature.

I didn't actually drive down the wrong way, staying on the left was
fairly easy to get into the system, what happens is that when you turn
right onto a new road, you have to cross one lane of traffic before you
get to "your" lane, and it's always a good idea to have a quick look to
the right to make sure there's no traffic.........which I failed to do,
scared the ***out of at least 2 other drivers and myself, not to
mention my friends in the car I was following as they saw the whole
thing

I mean, when I turn left onto a new road here, it's second nature to
look left and make sure the path is clear, it's those "little" things
like that which I found I needed to pay attention to, that and the fact
that some UK roads are somewhat narrow but that doesn't seem to affect
lorry/truck drivers one little bit

UK has some spectacular B roads though, if you like "active" driving,
drove down through Wales back in June, great scenery, fun roads and
littered with pubs, what more can you ask ?

The obvious answer would be a better understanding of the language of
course, but once they realize you're not English.....:-), I'll never
understand how words can have 20+ letters, of which one or two are
vovels and still being able to pronounce it, Polish is nothing compared
to Welsh :-)

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

"The Pits"    http://www.racesimcentral.net/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

Robin Lor

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Robin Lor » Mon, 23 Sep 2002 07:05:46


> That's funny - that exact same roundabout just came up in a discussion on
a
> cycling newsgroup...
> <cue twilight zone music...>

Spooky!

--
Cheers,

Robin ................... `o^=o-

now playing: Decoder - Auto

http://www.oppositelock.freeserve.co.uk - Nrburgring/GPL

Dave Pollatse

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Dave Pollatse » Tue, 24 Sep 2002 02:46:32

I think Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right in
the late 1960s...that must have been an exciting day to be driving...
-Dave



> > In Europe, only the UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands drive on
> > the left hand side of the road.
> <snip>

> Not quite - so do Cyprus, the Isle of Man and Malta. (But Gibraltar
> drives on the right!)

> --
> The GPL Scrapyard: http://www.btinternet.com/~gplscrapyard
> (including the Kinlet Park circuit - currently in beta)

> Idiotic deep-linking restrictions: http://www.dontlink.com

Goy Larse

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Goy Larse » Tue, 24 Sep 2002 02:56:26


> I think Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right in
> the late 1960s...that must have been an exciting day to be driving...

They did it in a very brilliant way actually, the first day all the
Lorries/Trucks switched to driving on the right, the rest followed the
next day.......

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy

"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

B Bonne

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by B Bonne » Tue, 24 Sep 2002 04:02:45



September 3rd, 1967, 5:00 AM to be exact. All traffic stopped for a few
minutes, then switched sides. Incidentally, thanks to the massive
educational efforts and propaganda preceding the changeover, September and
October of that year became two of the most accident-free months in recent
history, with only 50% of the accidents of the year before!

(The biggest concern for many drivers were the fact that from then on, they
would be driving with the steering wheel on the "wrong side" -- The cars
were already left-hand drive, and people were used to driving with a good
view over the road-side ditch... :)

Tim Epstei

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Tim Epstei » Wed, 25 Sep 2002 02:43:49

I unintentionally did the ultimate "throw yourself in the deep end" the very
first time I drove on the "wrong" side. I'm an aussie, now living in
England,and the very first time I drove a left hand drive car was in Paris.
I picked the car up in central Paris, and a few minutes later found myself
in the Arc d'triumph roundabout!

I don't think a Sim is going help. The trickiest thing for me was learning
to judge the distance to the right of the car from the left seat, instead of
the distance to the left from the right seat. As long as there is traffic
around when you first drive on the other side, you'll tend to follow it and
not drive on the wrong side. I think one of the most dangerous times is when
you first jump in the car in the morning and head onto the road. It's very
easy to drive onto the wrong side, due to habit.

Techinically, the driving conversion is simple, but you must constantly
remember to ignore your habits and look the other way when turning, merging
etc. I found after a few months of regularly swapping sides that it became
very natural. As soon as I hop in a left hand drive car my brain
automatically "switches".

Interestingly enough, I found it more difficult to drive my own RHD car when
I drove it around Europe for the first time, as by then I had become used to
LHD.


Jonny Hodgso

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Jonny Hodgso » Wed, 25 Sep 2002 03:38:47


> Interestingly enough, I found it more difficult to drive my own RHD car when
> I drove it around Europe for the first time, as by then I had become used to
> LHD.

I've driven my own car in Europe on two occasions, and a LHD hire
car on one.  In all cases I found it pretty easy to convert; the
worst situations are car parks with one-way systems, and doing
three-point turns when I got lost ;-)

Roundabouts were remarkably easy, and I was soon flowing through
them almost as naturally as I do in the UK.

The LHD Clio was interesting on mountain hairpins above Lake
Garda, though - on that occasion I probably would have preferred
my own 405, even if it is wider.

Jonny

Tim Epstei

English Driving (Left Side) Sim/Tutor?

by Tim Epstei » Thu, 26 Sep 2002 05:36:04

Interesting you mention that. The 2nd time I ever drove a LHD I got a bit
over-confident, and almost hit the cliff face a few times climbing on the
narrow road that goes up the mountain from Limone - on the NW side of Lake
Garda. However, the scariest bit was driving through all the narrow tunnels
around the edge of the lake, from Salo up to Riva. I was really terrified
when passing trucks coming the other way, as I wasn't confident about
judging the distance on either side!


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