Out of necessity and a bit of practice, I may have finally mastered the art of driving in Scotland. I do say “art” rather than “science” on purpose, of course, because several rules of the road do seem to be a bit subjective here. The rules regarding the roundabout seem to be set in stone—one yields to anyone coming from the right. There are a few instances where this seems counterintuitive, of course, such as the situation where you come upon a very small roundabout in the middle of the road and intend to go straight, and just a split second ahead of you, someone comes upon the same roundabout headed in the opposite direction and wants to turn right. That person, being on your right in the roundabout, would officially have the right of way, and would therefore turn right in front of you. That definitely seems odd the first few times it happens (and certainly the first few times you have to turn in front of oncoming traffic!) but it seems to work just fine.
It has taken a few weeks for me to get completely comfortable, of course, and at first I would only drive if one of the kids would promise to sit in the front passenger seat and chant “Stay to the left, mommy, stay to the left.” I was convinced early on that rental car companies in the UK should only be permitted to give cars to Americans after they had preset all the radio stations to classical music and issued a prescription for Xanax along with the rental papers. To me, it was ironic that, in my first few days of driving, about 10% of the other cars I saw on the road had some sort of “School of Motoring “placard on the roof or door and were filled with young native Brits who understood perfectly well the rules of the road here and yet hadn’t been licensed, while I was careening about like a passenger on “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” having no idea what any of the cryptic street signs meant!
Now, though, I feel as if I have cracked the code. In doing so, I realize that the code itself is sometimes completely baffling. For instance, it seems at first to be a hard and fast rule that one drives on the left. And yet, the roads here are so narrow in spots (and almost always lined with either a hedge or a stone wall…or both!) that drivers often have to stay all the way to the right to get around parked cars. In fact, there are several roads in St. Andrews that are essentially one lane—only wide enough for one car at a time. These types of roads seem to be governed by their own “you-then-me” policy, as long as they are short enough to allow one driver to see that another is oncoming at the other end in time to prevent a “head-on crack-up.” There’s actually one spot near the harbor where you enter a medieval-era “toll booth” (now, obviously, not used to collect taxes…) that was apparently constructed to allow a horse and rider to pass through and not much more, and drive through it on a road not much wider than a car for about 20 yards, then make a sharp left just on the other side, drive for about another hundred yards, then a sharp right. It’s (incredibly) not a one-way street and I have no idea how oncoming cars (who cannot see each other) would ever be able to get around each other if they met in the middle, nor how anyone would back up out of it. So, for the time being, I’m going to deal with that part of driving in the town in one way: complete avoidance!
So, the rules for driving are sort of easy to understand, but the rules for parking, however, are quite different, and in fact, I have yet to figure out if there are any parking rules at all! Some people park on the left, headed in the same direction as traffic, while others cross traffic to park on the right. Some people put one side of the car up on the “pavements” while others park their cars snug to the curb (and yet others seem to just stop in the middle of lane and leave the car there with a “right, then…good enough, eh?”). Since the roads are so narrow to begin with, a parked car tends to clog up traffic a bit, and most drivers will slow way down before going around a parked car, or stop completely and wait for oncoming traffic to clear before going around. I do say “most drivers” because there are still several who will just swerve into oncoming traffic anyway to get around the parked car. When this happens, I can’t help but instinctively jump and pull in my shoulders and elbows—as if that will retract my side-view mirrors, which are undoubtedly about to get clipped…)
I am proud of myself that I have figured out driving for the most part. I’m sure I’m still driving much more slowly that most drivers and taking too much time in the roundabouts, but I figure that I’m not too worried about what other drivers think. They probably just shrug and assume I’m a “pensioner” who won’t be out on the roads much longer. Now, if only I could stop signaling my ineptitude to my fellow drivers by CONSISTENTLY getting in the car on the left, realizing there is no steering wheel there, getting out and walking AROUND the car to get back in on the right.
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