I consider myself a good driver in the US.  I figured driving on the other side of the road wouldn’t be all that rough.  I anticipated a short adjustment period but hoped that I would be able to slip back into a comfortable familiarity. But it is so much harder to overcome the habits and muscle memory of something I’ve been doing for well over ten years.

Just walking up to the driver’s side of the car can take conscious effort.  If I’m deep in thought, rummaging through my purse, or talking on my phone as I approach the car,  I inevitably walk up to the left-hand side.  Wrong.  And inevitably, I proceed to mutter words of frustration to myself as I amble around to the proper side.

Of course, once I make it to the driver’s side of the car. I need to sit down…Obviously-easy.  But the first several times I sat down in the drivers seat, I immediately reached for the seat belt over my left shoulder.  Which blew my mind away.  I’ve sat on the right-hand side of the car before.  I know that the seat belt is on the right.  But there must be some trigger from seeing the steering wheel that made me think that the safety belt was on the left still.

Reversing out of a long driveway wasn’t the easiest first thing for me to attempt while driving.  Looking over my left shoulder while reversing felt awkward and the mirrors just felt “off” from my new perspective.  Granted, its not like I was an expert at driving in reverse in the US.  I’m not trying to overstate my abilities here, but reversing out of that driveway the first time took a helluva long time.  Thankfully the car at my first house sit had sensors alerting me when I was getting a little too close to solid objects as I reversed.

Once I’m driving forward on a road, you’d probably think that staying on the left hand side of the road would be the most difficult thing. But honestly, that has been the easiest part of the transition.  Especially when driving in the city or suburbs, there are enough other cars or street signs to have a consistent reminder of what side of the road my car needs to be on.

In fact, the bigger issue has been that I have a tendency of driving my car too far left.  I need to constantly re-center myself in the lane.  I’m used to my body being on the left hand side of the lane, so I tend to drift on over to the left- until I give the curb a little love tap.  It jolts me back to reality and I glue my eyes to the back of the drivers head in front of me and try to regain proper alignment based off of them.

My most consistent error while driving though has been using my blinkers (or indicators as they say here).  In the US, the indicators are on the left hand side. Up is right.  Down is left.  Windshield wipers are on the right.  Whelp, all of that is reversed here in Oz.  So if you want to have a good laugh, please picture me turning onto a street I’ve never been on, with the windshield wipers going maddeningly fast on a perfectly clear day.  Meanwhile, I’m trying to find the indicator, and I end up indicating the wrong direction because ‘up’ is no longer right- it’s left.  I definitely feel like a hot mess every time that happens.  Which used to be quite often.  Now that I’m driving a manual, it happens much less because my left hand is preoccupied with shifting and therefore my left hand is tempted to set off the windshield wipers instead of the indicators.

Shifting with my left hand was actually an easy transition as well.  The most difficult part (embarrassing to admit), is that my left arm just felt a little weaker while shifting.  But the gears are still in the same position (i.e. 1st gear is still forward-left).  If that was reversed too, I may have come unhinged.

A few times, driving on the left-hand side has caused some anxiety.  Mostly when turning right.  Once when turning right in the city, I almost slammed on my brakes.  I saw a car facing me on the right-hand side of the road.  Even though I was aiming appropriately for the left lane, I panicked momentarily and thought I was turning onto a one-way street.  But I managed to quickly correct my ridiculous thought and complete my turn and continue driving down the left-hand side of the road.  Another issue I have when turning right is this incessant urge to look over my right shoulder to make sure that I’m not going to get t-boned as I make my turn.  Even if I can see the cars driving towards me from the right lanes, I still have the urge to turn and look.  I feel like I’m driving in the left lane of a one way street and then trying to turn across multiple lanes of traffic travelling the same direction as me.  I feel like this doesn’t really make sense the way I’m describing it so check out this diagram below.

One major rule of the road is different here that I didn’t anticipate.  I think most places in the US (if not all), you can turn right on red as long as there’s no oncoming traffic and no sign saying “no turn on red”.  Well, the first time I was driving, the cars in front of me didn’t turn left on red.  I thought that was odd so I decided to double check with my Aussie friend that it isn’t illegal here.  He freaked out on me and couldn’t imagine how I thought it would be okay to turn when there is a red light in front of me.  Easy, been doing it for years.

In order to drive in Australia, I needed to get my international driver’s permit. My Aussie friend thinks I should have been educated on the different road rules in order to get it.   But, it was pretty simple to obtain.  I just had to go to a AAA office and show them my valid driver’s license.  They took my picture and a few minutes later I walked out with the permit. I’ve only had to show it once so far which is when I rented a car.  I’m not entirely sure how strict they are about having it, but I’d rather not find out.

Every time I drive in Oz, I get a little more accustomed to driving on the left-hand side of the road.  Hopefully, I’ll be slightly more habituated before I take a long road trip in Australia.  But it does make me wonder: will I drive better or worse when I return to the USA?