airmotive

And how many times did you signal a lane change by turning on your windshield wipers??
In your defense, exiting DUB is a challenging place to teach yourself the art of left-handed shifting. Been there, done that!

Badenoch

Much to my embarrassment I seem to have misread the company website. Only autos available. :

bibbju

I have to say that I've seen some of the worst driving ever in Ireland by American tourists. When I hire a car at Dublin airport, I get the hell out of there as quickly as I can! There are an awful lot of people just arrived off overnight TATL flights who can't drive a manual and have never driven on the left before (or experienced roundabouts it seems). Talking to them while waiting to pick up cars, some of them are really lovely, interesting people but jeez, I don't ever want to be near them on a road.

Almost as bad as the time I got stuck behind some American tourists in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. They were clearly freaked out at the narrowness of the road (single road with few passing places) and the number of bends, plus the freely wandering native sheep but they coped with this by driving at 10mph (the speed limit was 60mph) or at times SLOWER. They stopped whenever a sheep looked like even thinking about stepping into the road. They seemed completely oblivious to me being behind them and the traffic jam they were slowly causing to build up (for almost 15 miles!!) With nowhere to overtake for miles and no turn-offs, it was painful. And actually quite dangerous as the chances of a local driver flying round a bend into them at 60-70mph was fairly high.

I love driving in Ireland but try to avoid being anywhere in the region of the airport about an hour after the TATL flights start arriving.

cubbie

I've been driving stickshifts in the US for about 30 years, but whether it's stick or automatic, the thought of trying to drive on the other side of the road in the UK or Ireland unnerves me too much to contemplate renting a car there. I'd rather arrange my whole trip using public transportation. So in reply to the previous poster's comments re American tourists in Ireland, I don't think it has anything to do with stick vs automatic, it has to do with driving on what is for us the "wrong" side of the road. (Yes, I imagine I could get used to it, but that's another conversation for another thread.)

wolfie_cr

going to DUB

1) stick ? duh I use them every day, np
2) driving on the left.....umm lets watch some youtube videos and lets get into the mind set......ok np

ofc I wasnt expecting a damn roundabout (which we have quite a few over here) but working in the opposite way

good thing I only encountered one.......

YVR Cockroach

Reminds me of someone I knew 3 1/2 decades ago. Broke his right arm so couldn't shift. Had a buddy do that while he drove for quite a while.

deniah

this guy drives a race car with no legs



and him with no arms




no excuses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bibbju

That's how I first learnt about changing gears. My father broke his rib but still had to drive to work. He used to take me with him and he'd operate the clutch with his foot whilst I operated the gear stick (it was too painful for him to do it). I was 7.

WorldLux

It's IMO not that difficult. I have driven cars "from the continent" () in the UK and it works out quite nicely. Navigating double roundabouts, etc... is a piece of cake. I did however notice how many of my friends had bad experiences driving in the UK and made it sound like it was hell on earth. In one instance, a friend was following me in another car and at a double roundabout he bailed out. Seems that these things freak out some people.

Admittedly there are many liabilities on the road. Years ago I had to do a safety driving seminar (it's mandatory after having a DL for 2 years). There was this girl that was pushed the clutch whenever she was frightened. AND BOY! She was afraid a lot.

And after a whole day of skidding about (It was great fun for me) and "having learned our lesson", we all set of on the motorway at >100 mph.

Wouldn't it be more dangerous if two cars drive 60 mph in a head-on collision? @:-)

And that guy is quite skilled

Cloudship

It's not the roundabouts that troubled me driving in the UK. It was the fact that they put stoplights in the middle of them that gave me trouble!

emma69

If there were blind bends when a local could fly around into them at 60mph+ then I sure as **** wouldn't be driving at 60mph. I grew up on English country roads, single lane, hedges brushing the side of your car width. Whilst the limit is 60, it certainly isn't safe to drive roads like that at 60. Not only will you meet cars, you will also meet pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and, as you point out, random farm or wild life in the middle of the road. Having been one of those horse riders as well, I know all too well what can be around the corner. And drivers should remember that in car v horse (or cow, or deer), whilst the horse will almost certainly come out worse, plenty of people have been killed by the horse coming through the windscreen.

In fact, driving defensively on country lanes almost certainly saved my life the time that a moron in an agricultural tractor with trailer flew around a blind bend at around 40-50mph (according to police), and was going so fast he went over my car, crushing it in part, through a hedge and a fence before he was able to stop. The thing that saved my life was the fact I was going slowly enough to stop on a dime as soon as I saw the front of him coming around the bend, another 5 feet further forward, and the angle would mean the large wheel would have come straight over the drivers seat.

lhrsfo

I'm really not clear why people think that they can, or should, drive in a strange car in a foreign country having just stepped off an overnight flight with no sleep. It's almost the definition of driving while impaired.

airmotive

My company specifically forbids it. We are not allowed to pick up a rental car after >6 hours flight.

ajGoes

Me too. Even one night's sleep wasn't enough for me - I waited another day. My wife said "I'll be fine to drive" and took the wheel when we picked up a car at LHR for the short drive to Stratford-upon-Avon. She wasn't. (We did arrive safely, but only with many repetitions of "left!" from me. I drove for the rest of the trip.)

MissJ

That's why I book business or first and actually do sleep. If I can't do either, I go straight to a hotel and go to sleep and book a hotel as close as possible - best if I can go sleep and then come back for the car. I'm a very comfortable driver, going from car to car is not a big deal to me. My last RHD car pickup was in NZ and I had just slept like a log on a 787 from the US. No problems at all.

I think a lot of it comes from people who don't travel internationally a ton and aren't completely familiar with how they are going to feel. People who cross an ocean regularly are going to know how well they sleep and which direction (East vs. West) is worse on them. For some reason, coming back to the US from Europe is always brutal for me so I never drive from the airport. But I know that because I've done it a lot.

This is why we frequent travelers have to give good advice and help out those who don't travel as much or are still learning.