OT: Driving in Scotland

[donyell34]

Going to Scotland next month , and will be renting a car for the week. Did get automatic but am concerned about the challenges of driving on the other side of the road. Any tips would be much appreciated.

 

[CL82]

It's doable. The roads are more narrow and traffic moves surprisingly fast on them, but in short order you will get used to being on the "wrong" side of the road. The thing that always got me was roundabouts that was when I found an overwhelming urge to drift to the "Right" side of the road.

 

[August_West]

I found an overwhelming urge to drift to the "Right"

of course you did. You always do.

 

[Conndog]

Hey, my wife and I are talking of going to Scotland in October- how long is your stay there, and are you basing yourself mostly in one or two cities or driving all over?

 

[Drumguy]

Going to Scotland next month , and will be renting a car for the week. Did get automatic but am concerned about the challenges of driving on the other side of the road. Any tips would be much appreciated.

Look both ways and then look both ways again. Check and double check since the left side won't be instinctive. Other than that you will get used to it pretty fast. I found walking in the cities was more dangerous since we look in the "wrong" direction first, take a step and then remember to look the other way.

 

[HuskyHawk]

I've done it in Scotland (once) and in Ireland (5 times). It takes about 10-15 minutes to adjust. Only issue really is pulling out of places, like gas stations, you may have a tendency to take a right turn into oncoming traffic. That's where you need to be most careful. On the highway, the right lane is the fast lane, that can be a bit odd, but when you see exits are left and the median is right, it becomes normal.

@CL82 is right about roundabouts. A friend in England gave me a tip on those, look right and ignore what is to your left, and don't hesitate or even slow down if it is clear to the right. Essentially, don't worry about the people who may try to merge in ahead of you (left) they will do the right thing...they are looking to the right, at you.

Where in Scotland are you going? Lots of pretty country up there. I loved the Isle of Skye.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Forgot the most important thing. Don't go to Glasgow. At all. Edinburgh is magnificent though.

 

[donyell34]

Thanks for the help. Flying into Edinburgh and staying there for 2 days then have a week in St Andrews, staying at the Brownlee Looks good on there website a stone castle converted to a B&B. Going to take day trips from there. No tee times for the old course but will try hard to get on. Looked hard at going the tour route where everything is done for you but being independent decided to go on our own. Do hope that is not a mistake. Feeling more confident about the driving with your feedback and appreciate it very much thanks again.

 

[Petero]

My wife and I have been to Scotland numerous times. We found rural roads and roundabouts to be the difficult places to fade to US habits In cities following the traffic makes things simple. We had a "pact" where the navigator could remind the driver at anytime to stay left/go left without getting pissed off. Generally the suggestion was followed by a thankyou. It worked well for us. Scotland is a a great drive we had absolutely no problem. If you golf go to Royal Dornoch in the north. It is absolutely the best and most scenic course ANYWHERE. Another special place is Islay in the Inner Hebrides. Fantastic whisky distilleries. It's a little hard to get to (2 ferries) but it's worth the effort. Ask the locals when the next community "ceilidh" is happening. This is a unique and authentic Scottish experience not to be missed.

By the way the Scots play golf early in the day and it stays light quite late especially in the May/June months. If your go off at 6-7 you can finish 18 without a problem and no one else will be out.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Thanks for the help. Flying into Edinburgh and staying there for 2 days then have a week in St Andrews, staying at the Brownlee Looks good on there website a stone castle converted to a B&B. Going to take day trips from there. No tee times for the old course but will try hard to get on. Looked hard at going the tour route where everything is done for you but being independent decided to go on our own. Do hope that is not a mistake. Feeling more confident about the driving with your feedback and appreciate it very much thanks again.

No need for a planned tour in my opinion. Those are more useful in less hospitable places that don't speak English. Wandering into rural pubs and chatting with folks is a big part of the fun in my opinion.

A week in St. Andrews is easy. We drove everywhere, from Edinburgh to St. Andrews to Aberdeen, to Inverness to Isle of Skye, down to Oban and over to Isle of Mull (and Iona) via ferry. Finally through Loch Lomand and the Trossachs on the way to Glasgow (boo) for the airport. It was easy.

I really liked Inverness/Loch Ness, which might be drive-able on a day trip from St. Andrews. Skye is really not.

 

[donyell34]

Great info guys and thank you. This is one of my wife's bucket list and we are looking forward to this big time. Got the maps out checking out these places.

 

[businesslawyer]

I drove from Edinburgh to St. Andrews in summer of '15. It's not a fun drive. Picking up a rental in a city and having to get used to being on the wrong side of the street in a 500 year old downtown is not relaxing. Highways are fine, but some of the local roads are also incredibly narrow, where if a car is coming in the other direction you literally have to be exactly in the middle of your lane or you will either be hoping the other driver isn't hugging the middle or you are going to scrape something on the left edge.

It may not be avoidable, and I'm not telling you I'd never drive to St. Andrews again, but I'd explore other alternatives harder than I did.

 

[tomtom80]

It's doable. The roads are more narrow and traffic moves surprisingly fast on them, but in short order you will get used to being on the "wrong" side of the road. The thing that always got me was roundabouts that was when I found an overwhelming urge to drift to the "Right" side of the road.

Never been to Scottland (on the list) but agree totally about the roundabouts. On our honemoon in Bermuda, a daily activity we had was reading about all the tourists who ended up in the hospital in traffic accidents - the roundabouts were SCARY cuz you always look the wrong way and forget who has the right of way

 

[8893]

We had a "pact" where the navigator could remind the driver at anytime to stay left/go left without getting pissed off. Generally the suggestion was followed by a thankyou. It worked well for us.

We had the same pact on our recent England/Wales/Ireland trip and it worked well for us also.

I know you said you were renting an automatic @donyell34 ; the only thing I would suggest on that front is that if know how to drive standard (and like it), I think it's actually easier driving that than an automatic over there because driving the standard naturally keeps you more actively engaged and focused on driving. I was apprehensive because it had been almost 30 years since I drove on the other side of the road, but I absolutely loved it, and driving standard was a big reason why. But I really love driving a manual transmission; this is clearly not the time to learn if you don't.

As for the other side of the road thing, just remember that whether you're driving here or there, the steering wheel (i.e., the side on which you are sitting as the driver) is always the side of the car that is closest to the middle of the road. Believe it or not, just repeating that in my head when necessary made it pretty easy (I actually had to remind myself a few times the first few days we were back in states).

We did a lot of very narrow roads in Wales and Ireland, especially the Ring of Kerry and a few other places that were really out in the sticks. There will likely be times when you have to graze a bush or some other type of foliage on your passenger side (and sometimes the roads were so narrow that both sides of the car were scraping up against branches, etc.). For that reason I highly recommend paying the additional fee to bring the liability waiver down to zero, meaning that you will not be responsible for any damage to the car. I paid the additional fee for both of our rentals on our recent trip, and in both instances I would definitely have been dinged for damage that scratched the paint if I had not paid the fee, meaning I could have--and like would have--been charged up to the full deductible of $2,000. IIRC the fee was approximately $30 additional for each rental day.

I agree with the comments about the rotaries, not necessarily because they are so difficult, but because there are so many of them. Most of the time you are continuing straight through them, but we found it helpful for the navigator (i.e., my wife) to physically point to the exit I needed to take. Just stay to the left and put your left blinker on to let the people entering behind you know that you are getting off.

Don't sweat it. You'll be fine.

 

[8893]

I found walking in the cities was more dangerous since we look in the "wrong" direction first, take a step and then remember to look the other way.

Definitely true for us as well.

 

[donyell34]

Great stuff 8893. My wife handled the rental and didn't know she rented some little thing I never heard of and it was stick shift, no problem done a lot of shifting over the years but when I was trying to process this in my head coupled with the other things to remember driving over there I changed to a auto(is the shifter on the left side) and.a Nissan Juke (didn't know they had a Juke) and just got back from the Nissan dealer and after realizing I wasn't there to trade my Chevy Silverado the kid gave me the keys and it'll work but my confidence goes up and down. Hope I make it back for the football season and of course the huskies BB. Thanks.

 

[8893]

Great stuff 8893. My wife handled the rental and didn't know she rented some little thing I never heard of and it was stick shift, no problem done a lot of shifting over the years but when I was trying to process this in my head coupled with the other things to remember driving over there I changed to a auto(is the shifter on the left side) and.a Nissan Juke (didn't know they had a Juke) and just got back from the Nissan dealer and after realizing I wasn't there to trade my Chevy Silverado the kid gave me the keys and it'll work but my confidence goes up and down. Hope I make it back for the football season and of course the huskies BB. Thanks.

Yes the shifter is on your left. It actually all works logically when you orient yourself to the middle of the road as I suggested, and I think having the stick on your left helps reinforce that everything there is basically a mirror image of what you do here. Think about it while you are still driving here. That's what I did; as I said, I was also very apprehensive about it myself (I actually started a thread here on it, too), but it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip.

Most of the automobile models are different there than here. Our first rental was a Skoda estate wagon and I had never even heard of the make, much less the model. It was totally fine--it was actually supposed to be something different per my rental selection ahead of time (a Citroen, I think), but note that they are only promising to deliver something in the same vehicle class (or better) that you selected, with the same features. In Ireland I was supposed to get a Ford Mondeo, but they gave me a Peugeot 508 instead, which was the same class. As I noted, both were manual transmissions by my request, and the Peugeot was a diesel, which is what I had requested for the Ford when I reserved it online in advance of our trip.