Driving in England

 As for driving in England, I have come away with different feelings after each visit. My first visit when we hired a car, I found the English too polite when at the wheel. You go first, no you go first. There are clear road rules about who goes first. I guess that must have been twenty years ago.

I recall driving from Newcastle to Blackpool via Carlisle, mostly on the M6. It was a wonderful drive with mostly three lanes and trucks and heavy vehicles in the left hand lane at 60 mph, general traffic at 70 mph in the centre lane and the third lane used for overtaking and by speeders. It worked brilliantly.

The same applied this visit when using the M/A1 motorway, except it was much busier. Trucks in the left lane moving to the centre lane to overtake a slightly slower truck in the left lane caused bother and it was not really possible to maintain the 70 mph in the centre lane for very long. Then there was the unnecessary slowing of traffic a long way before roadworks, that weren't even happening. In some places there were what looked like permanently placed traffic cones. 

As for the speedsters, here if you are caught travelling 15 mph over the speed limit, it is an immediate driving license suspension. I don't think it must be like this at all in England, given the number of people speeding on motorways. 

However, I found the standard of driving in the north excellent, only falling apart in the inner west area of Newcastle area where a lot of immigrants live. I felt sorry for the bus drivers. The large roundabouts can be intimidating but drivers are very forgiving if you are not quite in the correct lane. I seldom heard a blast of a horn. Many roundabouts have traffic lights and that all works quite well to ensure everyone gets their turn. A roundabout in Chesterfield was the worst for me and there was no way to avoid it after leaving our hotel. There were good road markings indicating which lane you should be in to use whatever numbered road you wanted, but they were faded to the point of being unreadable. 

R's Sister 3 will not drive further along the West Road than the A1 roundabout because as she said, she has lost confidence. She drove us to Sister 2's place one day and her driving was fine. Perfectly competent and safe. If she needs to go further, one of her three children, grandchildren or partners will take her.

Unlike here, no one really needed a horn blast from the car behind to move when a turn arrow came up. Clearly drivers were focused on their task at hand and not surreptitiously looking at their phones or in car screens. From what I have learnt, it is much harder in England to obtain a driving license and perhaps behind Germany, it must be nearly gold standard. It seemed few people pass the driving test at their first attempt. Clearly driving while distracted by devices and screens as a bad must be drummed into new drivers. 

I may as well include public transport here. I was disappointed that the electric buses have disappeared on the West Road. However, the current buses are first class. They are smooth, quiet, comfortable and the drivers are excellent at making your journey smooth and fuss free. Buses in cities in Australia are generally dreadful, noisy, rough and just unpleasant, though at least ours are air conditioned. 

Taxis and minicabs are similarly priced to here, but in England there is never a complaint about a short trip to the shops from the driver. People generally use the same  minicab firm, they become known and even there are short trips, they know at times the same person will require a longer trip. 

There is a plentiful number of helpful road signage, although for me, turn left in  246 yards was not helpful. Later I thought about it. A yard is less than a metre, so maybe it was say 200 metres, but I can't think like that on the road in a an area I am not familiar with and concerned about my driving when confronted with a yard distance number.