Having asked some Brits what driving in the USA is like, what do Americans think of driving in the U.K.?

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Chet-Harper@reddit

Pretty much the same. Turning at stop signs took a little getting used to when driving on the left but that’s it really. I’m used to NYC so I can handle the narrow streets. One thing I love is the little yellow heads up light that comes on when a red light is about to turn green. Let’s bring that to the U.S.

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RGV_KJ@reddit

I’m planing a UK trip soon. How are the drivers there.. Aggressive like NYC area? Is it better to get a rental car to cover Scotland?

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Chet-Harper@reddit

I’m sure drivers vary wildly like anywhere else. I didn’t find them too aggressive compared to NJ. People are generally conscientious but more so in the country or on highways than in the city. I haven’t done Scotland but I have driven all over Ireland and Wales and would 10/10 recommend both. So I can’t imagine Scotland would be too different transportwise

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RGV_KJ@reddit

Thanks!

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Bring_back_Apollo@reddit

Depends on the area significantly. Some areas the drivers are more inpatient and there’s greater likelihood of someone jumping a red. This is places like Essex and Liverpool. The West Country, however, is far more courteous. You will find variation but this is my experience.

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RGV_KJ@reddit

Thanks!

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Ravenclaw79@reddit

The roads are really narrow. Yikes.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Yup aside from the reverse driving the narrow roads were the wildest part and I say that as someone who has driven on small New England roads and alleys in Chicago or roads in Boston with parking on both sides.

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Colt1911-45@reddit

Driving in Boston especially in the Little Italy area is wild. Pulling in your mirrors on a box truck and parking and driving on the sidewalk is mandatory.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Driving a box truck in the north end? I’ll be praying for you.

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veryangryowl58@reddit

I thought they were bad until I drove in Ireland. You literally have to pull over if there's another car coming from the opposite direction. 0/10, would not drive there again.

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Old-Man-of-the-Sea@reddit

Whoa whoa whoa! What's this BS? All I ever read about is how Europeans have nothing but distain for how America is so car centric and how you don't even have to own a car if you're in Europe so why the hell would anyone be driving? Cmon get your hate straight.

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HonkyBoo@reddit (OP)

Driving in Europe and driving in the UK are as different as day and night. Who is your comment aimed at?

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Old-Man-of-the-Sea@reddit

Did you just say that the UK is not part of Europe? Dude Cmon!!!

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HonkyBoo@reddit (OP)

No, I said nothing of the sort.

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Whisky_Delta@reddit

I live here and after a while I honestly started to prefer it. Yeah, back-country B-roads can be unnerving but you also learn you don’t HAVE to go 60 just because you CAN. Obviously 20 years of austerity have caused the roads to go to utter shit and that’s really my biggest complaint. But people (mostly) adhering to the “stick to the slow lane and don’t undertake” rule outside the M25 ring is good. Being a motorbike rider I basically can’t ride Stateside anymore because I’ve become so used to people here actually noticing you, moving over to let you filter easier, and roundabouts being SOOOO much safer for riders than the un-ending series of crossroads stateside, each one of which I have to worry if some dick in an F350 is going to blow thru a stop sign and turn me into paste.

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Colt1911-45@reddit

Is filtering on a motorcycle legal in the UK? Wish it was legal in the States (other than California). I definitely agree with you on the crossroads giving me goosebumps when I ride. I am especially careful when a driver flies up to a stop at an intersection. I'm just waiting for them to not see me and sending me Superman style thru the side of their car turning my body into jello.

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Whisky_Delta@reddit

Filtering yes, splitting no. But to compare to the US, here people will move out of the way to let you filter through most of the time, as opposed to my experience in California where people would try to block you in or open their doors on you out of some kind of sense of injustice that you can move down the center.

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zignut66@reddit

Driving the Peak and Lake districts as well as the Cotswolds was sublime, for the natural beauty of course, but also fun winding roads. Narrow, yes, but not so heavily trafficked. I found UK drivers generally to be much too cautious. By the thousandth time we had someone hit a hard stop on entering a big highway roundabout with zero oncoming traffic, we got pretty frustrated. It’s literally signed for just yielding and the whole point of a roundabout is the flow (vs. stop sign or stop light). I found the drivers in Ireland to be better in this regard. The number of sheep in the roads outside of the cities in Scotland was insane.

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PPKA2757@reddit

Aside from the obvious “they drive on the wrong side of the road” and all of the “backwards” things that come from that (turning left on red, waiting to turn right at a light, etc). Many of their cars are manual, which the vast majority of Americans do not know how to drive. For those of us who can drive a manual transmission, the gear shift isn’t mirrored like the steering wheel is: First is still all the way up on the left, 5th/6th are on the top/bottom right, which is “correct” but I feel like would be very odd and difficult thing to do with one’s left hand. Also the roads are very narrow compared to the US.

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UKSterling@reddit

You cannot turn left on red in the UK. No exceptions.

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PPKA2757@reddit

TIL, thanks!

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HonkyBoo@reddit (OP)

And I think driving a manual with my right hand would be insanity. Goes to show that we’re all the same deep down.

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Building_a_life@reddit

I have family in Newcastle, and have visited several times. I once spent 6 weeks as a tourist driving around England and Scotland. Driving on the left isn't as hard as it seems. The hardest part was shifting with your left hand. Roundabouts were okay because you could drive around the circle as often as necessary until you'd figured out where to get off. As everybody else has said, the narrow roads are terrifying. There are no shoulders, never a place to pull over and get your bearings. Worse than that, there are many single lane roads, especially in Scotland. Not little dead ends, but significant rural roads you have to take to get where you want to go. No shoulders, of course. When you meet someone coming at you, one of you has to back up till you find a place to pull off the road.

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bi_polar2bear@reddit

I drove in Japan, which is very similar to the UK. I like driving in the left lane better than the right lane. It's easier to drive, for me, with thinner lanes. Though the Japanese are exceptionally polite drivers, if they cause an accident, they, not insurance, have to pay the other driver a predetermined set fee based on their income, so they are also very careful drivers. London didn't have very careful drivers, except the cabs. Those guys were great!

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DrunkHacker@reddit

I've driven Victoria Station<->Stonhenge and around Scotland. Even with a stick shift it all felt pretty natural. Navigating London without GPS would have been a nightmare though. I'd previously driven around Ireland and New Zealand though, so I'd been used to the wrong-side-of-the-road and roundabout and all that for a bit. Ireland was probably weirder as some rural "two land" roads seemed barely big enough for one car -- and both sides were bordered by stone walls or shrubs.

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AskAnAmerican-ModTeam@reddit

Thank you for your submission, but it was removed as it violates posting guideline “ No "what do you think/know about X Country/citizens" questions.” If you have questions regarding your submission removal - please contact the moderator team via [modmail](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/AskAnAmerican).

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MaterialCarrot@reddit

I found it fairly terrifying. It wasn't driving on the other side of the road, or the other side of the car (I actually did it with a stick shift, and it wasn't that bad) that was the issue, it was how *narrow* the roads were once you got off their major highways. Very narrow, often no shoulder, often the "shoulder" is a stone wall or house. Also the British countryside tends to be more densely populated and traveled than in the US, so even though you are not in the city there tends to be a lot of cars. I've driven in Chicago, LA, over the Rockies, Washington DC, Paris, etc... But that drive from Portsmouth to Bath was the most white knuckle of my life. Every car that I passed in the opposite lane felt like it was going to clip me, and I constantly was worried about clipping whatever was on my opposite side. I parked the car next to our apartment in Bath and told my wife that was it for me driving that trip. I was DONE.

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HonkyBoo@reddit (OP)

We are all kings and queens of country roads here. Sometimes there’s no room to pass, that’s where our reversing skills shine.

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Atlas7993@reddit

Hello, fellow Iowan. I share your sentiment. Driving in the UK was horrifying. I was glad I only had to do it for the round trip from London to (also) Bath. I happily paid for public transport after that lol

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bsinions@reddit

American(SE US) here, visited relatives in England and they've also visited here. Their observations- we're too "nice". Always waving at others to let them in, waving at people to merge, stopping to let others in. When I was driving in England- my cousin had one bit of advice for me. "Drive, and if you make a mistake(without causing an accident) just keep going and don't slow down, people get way more pissed if you slow down and cause even more backup" As simplified example as possible- merge and feel like you almost cut someone off, don't slow down and wave out the window apologizing, just gun it and everyone would be good. From my experience driving there for a few days, seemed pretty accurate.

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Technical_Plum2239@reddit

Yeah, I am by nature a driver that wants to let everyone in, but I save it for when it does not affect any other driver. So if there's a bit of room in front of me and the lane I am in isn't going too fast, I flash my lights. People zoom in and I never need to apply my brakes. The polite thing is being polite to everyone involved - including the people behind you. When you are someplace with a lot of traffic, being too "nice" will really fuck up the flow of traffic and can cause accidents.

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rawbface@reddit

Ok but like, what did they say? You asked, but *I* didn't ask.

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HonkyBoo@reddit (OP)

In terms of what they said and what I agreed with: Perhaps less drivers have good lane discipline. In my head I was thinking: Do they have a fast and slow lane on their highways? And if so, why is the crossover junction on the fast lane? Roads are bigger, wider, more lanes, straighter. Was easy honestly, just took getting used to be on the left of the car, in an automatic.

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Atlas7993@reddit

I found driving on the left side to be quite whimsical. Actually driving the roads in the UK, however, is like trying to walk a tight-rope. It's horribly narrow and little room for error.

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taylocor@reddit

1) the roads are so narrow, that was really hard to get used to. 2) driving on the left side of the road took a lot less time to get used to than i thought it would 3) you take your speed limits way more seriously than we do 4) the yellow light coming on before green was my favorite thing ever, and i still miss it almost two years since being in England.

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MiketheTzar@reddit

From what family guy has told us.[it's very scary ](https://youtu.be/sQVv44SlUXM?si=gIwk02mmbFHPG7pf)

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nice1a2@reddit

I had a very hard time in London, very hard almost to full blown panic attack. Edinburgh was better but still tough. Roads smaller, tighter and that's going from a large SUV here to a Skoda small compact there. Public transport was good so hopefully I'll never have to drive there again.

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Vurnd55@reddit

Not UK but NZ. Went there on holiday and was terrified of driving after being a passenger in the UK. It was much easier than I had been afraid it would be. The side of the road thing was surprisingly easy to get used to but driving in Auckland with road construction and temporary detours was nerve wracking. Even with the narrow roads the countryside was OK until opposed by large trucks but I just pulled over and let them by. I would do it again in NZ and willing to try in UK. The hardest thing for me was estimating distances in kilometers instead of miles. Keeping the speed limit was fine because the car had kph on the dash but I was never too sure of how far/how long anything was from me.

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Rhomya@reddit

I drove for approximately like, 4 hours, and I hated every second of it. The roads were incredibly narrow— terrifyingly narrow. I felt like every car I drove by was going to side swipe me. It’s eerie how programmed you get driving on the right side of the road and suddenly have to drive on the left. It just… felt wrong. All sorts of little things I do without question while driving in the US suddenly took much more thought. I’m sure if I learned to drive there it wouldn’t be an ordeal, but it made me very grateful for our blessedly wide and open roads in the US

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Imagination-Ohana@reddit

I think that the locals are probably incredibly happy that I stick to trains when I visit the UK.

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RedditAltQuestionAcc@reddit

Driving on the wrong side of the road is cringe.

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JtheNinja@reddit

Motorways are pretty familiar, although Brits have way better lane discipline than Americans (at least the pacific NW Americans anyway). Everyone was really good about only using the inner lanes to pass, and moving over when they weren’t passing. Cities, on the other hand, have crazy narrow streets. There were streets my American brain was sure were a one-way because they seemed to only have room for one travel lane with all the parked cars. But nope! Two-way, two-lane street! Also, when driving a RHD car it’s easy to forget that all of the car is to your left, not to your right like you’re used to. If you’re not paying attention you tend to drift towards the left side of the lane, and it’s easy to scrape your car on narrow obstacles on the left because you’re not expecting to need so much clearance on that side.

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MountTuchanka@reddit

Driving in the city there is very uncomfortable but I fully consider that a personal issue, I hate driving in any major city In the countryside it’s mostly fine, near farmland I felt I had to watch out for animals more than I would here Of course the biggest struggle was switching sides of the road. Most people say they get the hang of it after a few hours but Ive driven in 4 countries that drive on the left and I never got comfortable with it.

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MattieShoes@reddit

The roads are narrower. It's hard to suppress that moment of panic going the wrong way around a roundabout, turning right, or turning left. Brits tend to drive on the middle of narrow roads, then move over for oncoming traffic. That's scary when your instinct is to move over the wrong direction. Brits stop in the road to talk on cell phones. Better than distracted driving but still weird.

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bigby2010@reddit

Haven’t driven in the UK. You’re welcome, locals

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willtag70@reddit

When I was young, adventurous, and a bit too confident, I rented a car in London. I survived but shouldn't have been driving there. I'm a good driver in the US, but years of driving instincts are not easily flipped. Hardly fair to put innocents at risk. I would absolutely advise against it.

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mitchdwx@reddit

I was in the UK for the first time last year and didn’t even think about renting a car. And I’m glad I didn’t. The streets of London were extremely chaotic and driving on the other side of the road in that environment would have been a nightmare.

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full_of_ghosts@reddit

I've driven in the UK. It's a little tricky to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road/car, but otherwise it's really not much different.

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FrauAmarylis@reddit

We never drive there. We are likely moving there and still won't drive.

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huhwhat90@reddit

I've not driven in the UK, but I have ridden shotgun. Once you're out on the motorways or in the countryside, it's a pretty similar experience to driving in the US (aside from the glaringly obvious). The cities are a different matter. I found the streets to be very cramped, congested and a little difficult to navigate.

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