My trip to England
Posted on November 9, 2015
Filed Under GENERAL
I swore I would keep the website up to date, and I guess I have not been doing a very good job of that. Well, there are only so many hours in the day. To all the people who asked questions, which I answered late: my apologies. If you really want a question answered, it is best to email it to me at [email protected]. The ones on the website I only get when I update the website which is not that often. The email I get every day.
I went on vacation several weeks ago for 8 days. It was the first week long vacation I had taken in 8 years. I have been trying to catch up with work ever since. I went to England. I have been there before, but this was the first time I drove a car over there. My wife and I covered a good deal of territory, too. I’ll be honest, it was harder than I thought it would be. The steering wheel is on the right side of the car (although the pedals are the same). You drive on the left side of the road.
The left side of the road-thing probably isn’t the hardest part. The hard part is the roads are much narrower than American roads. What I would consider a back road here in Pennsylvania is a major “A”-road over there. An “A” road generally equates to a US or State road here. The American Interstates are about the same as the British “M” roads.
You will be driving on one of these narrow, two lane, “A” roads, and traffic is whizzing past you going 50-60 mph. It takes some adjusting. Plus, none of these roads are straight. Twisting, turning, very narrow. I paid for the talking GPS unit, which was invaluable. Without “Jane” the talking computer, I’d probably still be trying to find the airport.
After a week, I had pretty much gotten the hang of it, although I still didn’t drive in London. When I got home, I looked up British fatality rates on the Internet. According to Wikipedia, there are 4.3 road fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometers, in the United Kingdom. It also says there are 7.6 road fatalities per billion vehicle-kilometers, in the United States. I do not know what time period this covers, as Wikipedia is vague on that, but let’s assume it’s apples to apples. 4.3 vs. 7.6 is a pretty big difference. What you are basically saying is you are almost twice as likely to get killed in a vehicle in America as in England.
There may be some reasons for this. One thing which probably is not a factor is speed. They drive fast as hell over there. Furthermore, they really don’t have police officers. What they do have are speed cameras, but then, it seems they have big signs telling you where the cameras are. On those “M” roads, it was nothing to see people routinely driving 80 – 100 mph. I guess people slow down approaching the cameras, and then hammer it in between the cameras. Even on the “A” roads people would be routinely getting up over 80 mph.
One thing they have over there, which we absolutely do not have here is lane discipline. The slow lane is for driving. The passing lane is for passing. You do not hang out in the passing lane. You pass, and then you move back into the slow lane. You do not pass on the left (or through the slow lane). They even have terms for it. Passing is “overtaking”, which is acceptable behavior. Passing via the slow or left lane is called “undertaking”, and that is very much frowned upon. In the week I was over there, I might have seen 5-6 undertaking passes.
Of course over here, we see that all the time. I can get in my car, get on US 422, and see 5 undertaking passes before I get to the mall. It is simply acceptable behavior to hang out and block traffic in the passing (or left) lane. Cars and trucks do it every day, and don’t even recognize what they’re doing is impolite, irritating, or dangerous. A line of traffic piles up behind the vehicle impeding traffic, and within moments, cars are moving past the blocker vehicle in the right lane. It happens all the time. I believe this is one of the reasons we have a much higher fatality rate.
Another difference is the roundabout. They don’t have the American, perpendicular traffic lights over there. They have traffic circles where the roads intersect. Occasionally these are controlled with traffic lights, but often they are not. They take some getting used to. However, there probably are not a lot of fatalities in the roundabouts, as no matter what, you have to slow down to get around the circle. At the American, perpendicular intersections, everything works great until somebody misses a red light. Then you have one vehicle going 50 mph, with another traveling in a perpendicular direction also going 50 mph, which leads to a high-speed, high impact crash.
They have smaller vehicles over there. They have plenty of tractor-trailers. They call them lorries. They have lots of cars. They do not have giant SUVs or pickup trucks. They won’t fit on their narrow roads. This is probably a factor in fewer people getting killed, as there aren’t any giant SUV versus small car crashes over there.
It was an adventure. A little nerve-wracking, but I’m glad I did it.
Comments
Leave a Reply
