I've been avoiding this topic because it is so complex, however, I think it is important because so many people are afraid of driving in the U.K. "on the wrong side of the road." Of course, the wrong side depends on where you learned to drive, but it does take some adjusting of our brains when we have to adjust our driving to such a basic thing.
So, actually driving in the U.K. is both a challenge and an adventure.
Taking the Train or an Organized Bus Tour
Yes, you can avoid driving by taking the train or a tour, but there are problems with both of these options.
- First, taking the train means you can only get off the train where it stops. You can see a lot of countryside from a train window, but you are really missing more than 95% of a country when you just look at it from a window. In addition, when you get off the train, you are inevitably in the center of a city or town, which means you have to take a cab to a hotel or walk there dragging your luggage. And you will only see larger towns and cities because that is where the train stops. You will not see the tiny places in the country, nor will you be able to pull over and experience the countryside itself. Now, there are some towns where you definitely do not want to drive, such as London, Edinburgh, York, and a couple of other places, so what I usually do is tack these onto the beginning or end of a trip, and drive in between.
- Tours are OK if you never have been somewhere, but they will take you primarily to the places other tourists always go. You will tend to stay in large hotels because they have elevators, and you will be constantly with a group, which means you are very unlikely to meet and chat with local people or British travelers. And tours sometimes make extra profits by taking you to places where you are likely to spend money. An example would be the "rug-making demonstration" I once experienced while on a cruise tour in Turkey. Basically, it turned out to be a rug store, where you got a little information on how the rugs were made, but mostly a big sales pitch on why you should invest in their rugs. Ditto for the winery we visited, which turned out to be a salesroom. I strongly suspected the tour organizers got kickbacks for these choices. And frankly, I like to make my own schedule, rather than have to travel via someone else's.
Personally, while renting a car and getting used to driving on the "wrong" side can be scary at first, I would never choose anything else because I like to go to small places that other people might not want to go to.
Renting a Car
When renting a car in ANY country, check prices between rental agencies and among cities. On the U.K. trip in 2022, a small automatic car for 28 days rented from Enterprise would have cost me a whopping $4,000 at Heathrow Airport, $2,800 at Edinburgh Airport, and $1,146 in York. And this was checking only Enterprise!! Guess which one I chose?
Also, especially in the U.K., you want to rent the smallest automatic they offer. Even though I can drive a manual transmission, I know I will have to be focusing a lot just trying to drive safely, and I do not want to have to worry about shifting gears while turning and remembering which lane to get into.
Personally, I also like to rent from one of the major rental companies, rather than take a chance on an agency I know nothing about.
Roads and parking spots in the U.K. tend to be very narrow. Here is an example of a situation I recently experienced in a very typical parking lot. (My rental car was the black one in the middle, and I parked there first.) Remember that my driver's seat was on the right side of the black car, and I am too old to try climbing over the console to get into the seat!!
Luckily, that car was gone the next morning when I needed to leave. That last spot really should have been designated for a motorcycle, but this car did get in, and its door was on the right side, so I assume the driver was skinny and limber enough to get out and back in.
So, don't let the rental agency try to upgrade you to a bigger car--you want a small one you can park easily. If they want to upgrade you, ask for a car with the GPS turned on instead. That and the backup camera and the avoidance warnings are really helpful in crowded conditions. TIP: Car rental agencies want you to pay extra for a GPS, but many of the cars come with it unlocked because it cannot be turned off!!!
Oh, and one last thing. Check with your U.S. auto insurance policy to make sure it will cover those extra fees for damage coverage the rental agency wants to sell you, and make sure you see it in writing--don't take your insurance company's verbal response!! If you car insurance will not cover extra damage fees, check with your credit card company and use that card to rent the car. Ditto about getting credit card coverage policies in writing. (I had damage to my rental car in Florida over a year ago when it was parked in a grocery store parking lot. I got a bill for over $2,800, and my specific Chase Visa card paid for it. One thing I did not do and should have done, however, is file a police report even for a parking lot scrape.)
Also, take photos of your rental car on all sides when you are doing the walk-through with the rental agent. Take more photos of your car and the car that caused the damage if you get any scratches or dents. And take even more photos in the rental agency parking lot when you turn it in. You want proof that you did not damage that car!!
Learning to Drive Again
The first day of driving is going to be scary, very scary. You are not only driving on a different side of the road, you are driving in a different country with different road signs and rules, and you are also driving a car you have never driven before. Here is some advice:
- Take some time while you are sitting in the rental car lot to get familiar with all the controls and adjust your mirrors and seat. You will not have time to do that for the first few miles, so make sure you can see out all of the mirrors and can adequately reach the pedals. Also take time to find the heating and air conditioning controls and set them the way you want them.
- Hopefully, you have rented the car in a smaller town, so you can get out of town fast and not have to deal with too much traffic when you are adjusting. BIG TIP: Set your GPS before you begin, and if it gives you a choice, select the route with the fewest turns, even if it is several miles longer. Turns will be tricky at first.
- No eating or drinking or checking maps while you drive, so get that done ahead of time!!!
- When you get to the car lot exit, you will need to be very conscious of where you want to go and which lane you need to turn into. (For me, I still need to do this when I am exiting anything.) Say to yourself, "I need to turn right, so I will need to go into that far lane on the right." Mentally, look at that lane and then wait for traffic to clear, making sure you are looking both ways and remembering which way traffic is going to be coming from. The above might seem obvious, but you will find that turns and exiting parking lots are places where you are likely to make an error that will result in other drivers doing a lot of angry honking at you!
- Once you are going in the right direction and are in the correct lane, you just have to follow the car in front of you! Easy, and hopefully you will not have any quick turns right away. If you do, always remember to identify where you want to end up before you turn!
- One really big problem in driving in the UK is that a lot of roads, especially in towns, are not marked, or marked with ancient, tiny signs in places where you cannot see them, so not only should you listen to oral GPS directions, but you also need to look at the map to see when you need to turn and which direction.
- A positive is that UK traffic roundabouts tend to be very well marked. Except, they have these things which they call mini-roundabouts, which are really not round and might make you wonder if they are really roundabouts at all. Hence, watching the GPS maps is important. It can also help to have a passenger who can look for signs and tell you when to turn because you will be focusing on trying to squeeze your vehicle past cars parked in your lane and coming towards you when there is not enough space for both of you at once!
The good news is that the second day will be less scary, and by the third or fourth day, you will be feeling much more relaxed. Good luck!
UK Roads - Types and Issues
There are a lot of types of roads in the UK that you will come across. Some are easier to drive on and some can be pretty scary. Here they are, according to my definitions:
- First, are what I call the 1-digit roads. These are the main /motorway/freeways that look very much like freeways all over the world--limited access, two lanes on each side, occasional gas and food courts, etc. Assuming you get on the on-ramp, you can just follow the cars in front of you, remembering to stay in the far-left truck lane while you get used to driving. They are very easy to drive on because you have very few choices to make and can easily follow other cars. Examples are the A1 or M6 highways.
- Second, are the 2-digit highways. These are two-lanes wide and used heavily by tourist buses and big trucks, although they avoid towns and cities. Most also have sharp, stone curbs at the edges, and NO SHOULDERS whatsoever!!! When a big truck or huge bus comes around a corner from the opposite direction, your tendency (or at least my tendency) is to panic and hit the curb. Did this once several years ago and blew a tire. Was lucky to be able to cross the highway and find a wide entrance to a golf club of some sort to pull into to wait for the service truck. (Actually, it was fun to ride into the tire shop and buy a tire from the funny tire guys who recommended a great seafood place on my way to the ferry.) Credit card insurance paid for the new tire, and Avis which was the rental company, paid for the service call. BUT, I now avoid these roads as much as possible because I really dislike the heavy and very fast traffic, but they are less scary the farther north and away from cities you go. Examples are the A82 in Scotland and the A59 I drove on briefly yesterday.
- Third, are the 3-digit roads. These are the equivalent of U.S. country or county roads. They are nearly always two-lanes wide, but almost never have any shoulders. The good news is that tourist buses and long-distance trucks almost never take these, although you will see a smaller truck occasionally on them. Sometimes they have sharp stone curbs at the edge and sometimes not. Yesterday, I took the A629 from Harrogate to the Bronte sisters town. One problem with these roads is that they go directly through towns so there may be places where the roads narrow and cars will be parked in one or both of the lanes. However, the Brits are pretty polite about finding a place to pull over so another car can get past while they wait for their turn. It really is not difficult, as long as you follow the unwritten rules, and I do mostly like these roads. Here are photos of a couple of such town situations:
Note that in the photo directly below, I am driving partly in the left and partly in the right lane because of the car parked in the left lane where I should be driving. If another car comes towards me, I will pull into the empty space in front of this car to the left to let the oncoming car past me.
- Finally, we have the 4-digit roads. These are generally one-lane roads that access farms in the countryside, but they can go past small villages, and they are sometimes barely one-lane wide. I love these little roads, especially in Scotland, because they go past farmers fields and often their barns and homes. They will all have some wider areas to pull over in if you see another vehicle coming towards you. And, while there is no speed limit posted on these, you really should not be driving very fast on them because sometimes they curve or go through woods, which may block your view of oncoming vehicles. Here are some examples of such roads:
This is a pretty good one-lane road, and pretty typical. The nice thing is that these roads seldom have those nasty sharp curbs. The only problem with this road is that if you pull over to let another vehicle through, and you happen to have side warning systems, the tall grass will make your warning system screech at you!
This one-lane road is pretty good, and the local farmer has mowed the grass along it so it is easier to pull over.
Parking Rules
Driving Hazards
Just a last warning about driving hazards. The biggest ones in the country are probably sheep. Most live in fenced fields, but they do get loose, so watch out for them just about anywhere. Also, in places where they are not fenced in, such as in the North Yorkshire Moors or the Yorkshire Dales, if you are driving in the spring or early summer, know that lambs are likely to dart across roads if they see a car coming and they are on the opposite side of the road from their mother. The adults also for some reason sometimes like to nap on the edge of the road, so watch out for these "large white rocks" as well.
Distance
In the U.S. most people on a long trip will plan on driving 300-400 miles per day on freeways or good two-lane roads. One thing you will learn fast in the U.K. is that a mile there seems to be a lot longer than a mile in the U.S.
For example, I just finished a drive today from my camping pod to a visitor center and some falls in the Dales. It was 23 miles away, per Google maps on the road I chose. It took me well over an hour to drive that distance and another hour driving back because of the narrow roads and all the stopping and slowing down I did for cars coming towards me. At that rate, unless you are driving all single-digit freeways, it would take you 10 hours to drive 200 miles, and you do not want to do that!
A good days drive is probably not more than 70-100 miles, even assuming one or two-digit roads!!
Did I leave anything out? Feel free to ask a question or suggest an addition.
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