Hey readers, be sure to check out my first guest post at OneTravel.com(offering cheap tickets)! It’s titled “Top 5 driving tips in United Kingdom” and it can soon be found in the blog section. Let me know if you have any comments. Will update with exact url as soon as it’s published!
Update: It seems the blog section of OneTravel is down so I am removing the links until the site is back.
Update 2: Seems that the OneTravel site will not be back anytime soon so I am reposting below:
Photo credit: Public Domain
Thinking of renting a car to explore the areas where public transport doesn’t go? After driving in UK for about 10 months now, I would like to share with you some tips which can possibly spare you from some unexpected surprises when sharing the road with others.
1. Be aware of the road condition
Honestly I can’t decide if the city roads or the country roads are worst. Country roads are narrow with an occasional pothole but the road surface is often consistent and less traffic is always better. City roads, especially in Greater London, give you the feeling that they are built piecemeal. The road surface can be good for some 50 metres then become bad unexpectedly. The primary cause is due to road works. Road works are all the rage nowadays in London. Every day when you drive you can be ensured of encountering at least a road work. They just seem to like digging up the roads and then covering it up again. Obviously they didn’t do a good job or there will not be so many pot holes. Sometimes the contractors just leave the road works uncompleted over a weekend causing massive obstruction in traffic. What gives? In spring after the snow thawed out, the roads can be filled with pot holes and you find yourself whizzing left and right in a bid to avoid them. There are also numerous speed bumps in residential areas and sometimes on a short stretch of road you can find several, prompting you to ask, are so many necessary?
2. Roundabouts are massively popular
When I first started driving in UK, I was a bit disorientated by the roundabouts. There are just too many! Uncontrolled junctions are clearly not favoured here, so get ready for your dose of roundabouts. If you don’t remember the rules, in a country where people drive on the left side of the road, we give way to traffic on our right in a roundabout. As you can imagine, contention can arise if all the traffic arrive at about the same time in a small roundabout. Not very safe in my opinion and some drivers can get confused. The American system of using “STOP” is safer in my experience. However, the good thing about a roundabout is if you happen to be in a heavy stream of traffic with nobody to give way to, you don’t need to stop at all.
3. Signage
Navigating the streets in UK can sometimes be very frustrating. Why? Road Signs bearing street names are very rarely placed in prominent places. The majority of them are placed waist level, which are often blocked by parked cars. However the parking signs or the no loading signs are everywhere! My advice is to use a GPS navigator or what they call a Sat Nav in UK. A second point to note is that road names are also mostly painted on the road surface at the larger roundabouts as a guide to which lanes to use. However, such road names are difficult to spot in situations where traffic is bumper to bumper. In addition, a road may have more than 1 name. For example, the “North Circular Road” can also be referred to as “A406” and you will usually find “A406” painted on the road surface.
4. Flashing and other road behaviour
In my home country Singapore when other drivers flash at you using high beams, they are warning you or are expressing their anger. It may happen when you filter into their lanes unexpectedly or if you are driving too slowly. Here in the UK drivers usually flash as a sign of thanks or they are signaling their intention to give way. The majority of drivers are polite especially in the countryside but they may also like to drive at a slow pace. They give way to others and they also expect that you give way to them. Therefore, it is most advisable to give way when they signal for a lane change.
5. Be wary of speed limit guides
Having lived in California for a year and droved extensively in the countryside, I would automatically add 10mph to a speed limit guide as I knew they tend to be overly conservative. However here in the UK, the speed guides can be very confusing. Sometimes they may be unnecessary slow, but sometimes it will be foolish to follow them unless you have the driving reflexes of F1 driver Lewis Hamilton and a 4WD car that grips the road like glue. I was once driving in the Lake District and the indicated speed limit is 50mph. However, even with my limited experience driving narrow country roads I knew the speed limit was not to be trusted so I was ready to slow down. It couldn’t be a moment sooner as I drove right into a sharp bend which was hidden by the winding road. If I had driven at 50, I would no doubt find myself at the bottom of a gorge.
2 Comments
A few useful tips here. As a native UK driver I can sympathise with visitors unused to the peculiarities of the way we drive. It is the same when I drive abroad, people interpret things differently and assuming a signal or action in one country means the same elsewhere can be dangerous! The first rule is be cautious until you understand what is going on.
I would like to say something about motorway driving. On the European mainland most countries use motorways sensibly, (apart from the busy cities!) keeping their vehicles in the slow lane, and only moving to the faster lanes for overtaking. It is all very civilised and you get used to overtaking one car, pulling back into the slow lane for a few hundred metres, then back out for the next overtaking manoeuvre. This keeps traffic flowing, no backing up in the middle or fast lane, and doesn´t slow you down!
In the UK the way people drive on motorways is ridiculous. Everyone wants to be in the fast lane or to hog the middle lane. It is as if being a slow lane driver is a sign of weakness or being a bad driver. The effect of this is that the slow lane (not what it is officially called) is often empty with the other two lanes a line of cars continually having to slow down as they reach the car in front, unable to overtake because their outside lane is full or they are in the outside lane, and eventually everything stops as a concertina effect takes place. Coming to a stop on a UK motorway is so common, and is usually without cause other than the driving habits of the users.
So if you are on a UK motorway do not be afraid to use the inside lane, apart from overtaking, and you will have a much less stressful trip and not get to your destination long after the idiots on the outside!
Thanks for your comments! Yes, I often use the inside lane myself on motorways, but it’s mainly I find that driving at 60 or 70mph seems to be much more fuel efficient than driving at 80mph. The fastest 2 lanes tends to be congested as most drivers tend to be very much in a hurry on motorways. To add to the congestion, there are often roadworks and speed controls on certain sections on some motorways especially on the M25. In this case, the slowing concertina effect which you have mentioned are very prevalent.
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[...] case you miss out on anything, I have listed them below: 1. Guest post: Top 5 Driving Tips in United Kingdom. The Onetravel wordpress site has been terminated for some weeks now, so I have reposted on my own [...]