As a person from the US, I got to drive in Canada for the first time. (For the past 4 years of driving, I never got to drive in another country) The experience was very interesting. I discovered some interesting traffic signs (like a flashing green light and flashing green arrow which didn’t exist in the US). Some of the roads in Canada were a bit narrower and smaller compared to the US, but it was not a problem for me.
Have you driven in another country besides your home country? If yes, which countries? What was your experience like driving in another country?
I’ve driven in Germany among other places, but of course that’s the one I want to point out because driving on the Autobahn was a bucket-list item for me.
If you ever drive in Europe, I’ll warn you that the road rules and signs are different enough that you absolutely need to do a fair amount of studying and learning before you go.
Canada, Mexico, and the uk. Mexico you can’t read the signs and in th uk they are on the wrong side of the road. Ridden in a multitude of other countries so the ride was uneventful, except for the crazy cab drivers in Italy.
I nearly had to end my long-planned New Zealand driving vacation as soon as it started and fly back to USA instead. I experienced much trouble getting used to driving on left side of road. I stuck with it, and eventually became accustomed to driving on the left hand side; then when I came back to USA i had similar difficulty adjusting to driving on right hand side … lol … My favorite part of New Zealand driving was how well their expansive traffic circles worked, saved a lot of time and frustration compared to stop lights/stop signs.
Norway driving, not much difference than California driving. They told me there however to never drink any alcoholic beverage at all before driving, even just one beer would put you over the legal limit and if stopped you might well end up in jail. Norway bicycle riding was different, folks there didn’t lock their bikes when they went on a shopping trip, just park the bike in front of the store unlocked. Bicycle theft . except perhaps in urban Oslo, is basically unheard of.
Paris driving was an experience. Mainly b/c I couldn’t understand the signs. At one congested spot I thought the no- parking signs meant no-entrance, so I stopped, and caused a bit of a traffic jam until somebody told me the signs just meant I couldn’t park there … lol …
I have driven in Japan, Germany and France. Japan was back in the 70’s. Very crowded roads and very very aggressive drivers. And you drove on the left side of the road, which wasn’t that hard to get used to. It was actually harder to get used to driving on the right side when I returned three years later.
I was in Germany in the late 90’s and drove in that country plus France. Now all countries in Europe use a common international sign system. For the life of me, I could not figure it out because they don’t mean what you think they mean. We use similar signs, sometimes here in the US, but they are NOT the same as the European International Road Signs and if they look the same, they don’t mean the same thing.
For example, when my wife and I were visiting a castle on the Rhine River, I though the round sign with a P in it was for Parking. Turned out that it actually meant No Parking except by permit. There was not a line through the P like I would expect for no parking.
I’ve driven in Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Austria, and the USA.
In France, the roads on the right always have the right of way to the through roads. That can catch people out. Driving is Paris makes Bostonians look sane and polite. LOVE the Autobahn! German drivers do NOT dally in the left lanes…ever, so uncontrolled areas of the Autobahn move fast and efficiently. City traffic is exactly like every other city. I only drove in Sweden in the winter in the countryside so…the roads are always snow covered (salt doesn’t work) but 4 studded snow tires handle it perfectly. Austria is like Germany but without the Autobahns. Driving in Canada is like driving in middle Ohio.
I’ve experienced differences in various regions in the US that are as much or more different than other countries. Boston and NY areas are insane…kill or be killed! Similar but not quite as bad in southern Michigan and northern Ohio. Relaxed in the wide open spaces of the southwest… AZ, NM, NV UT. Texas is like a whole 'nother country and just as wide! California is laid-back crazy like a Bostonian on Marijuana. Oregon and Washington and bit less frantic than southern California. Southeast US is pretty nice and generally polite…almost to a fault. Hawaii is just laid back all around. Mahalo!
Here a slash means “no”. There a slash means “end of” whatever condition or restriction is underneath (which normally started with an earlier matching sign).
I have driven through the northern part of Mexico.
Back when I first went there, back in 2007 or so, the town we went to had a bit of an unstable electrical grid (or corrupt gov’t as the locals said,) and occasionally parts of the city would just lose power.
as such, the main intersections in town had both stop lights AND stop signs. the stop signs only came into play if the stop lights were out. VERY, VERY confusing to an out of town visitor driving through town for the first time coming up to a green light and a stop sign. lol
luckily, I had experienced friends with me to help me understand what was going on. and to remind me to not drink the water.
Yeah landed in London and had to drive to the hotel. Never wanted to drive again once I made it to the hotel lot. Once on the open road though things were better.
The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Japan. The Netherlands was highways to and from Germany since we flew into and out of Amsterdam. I drove a lot over 2 weeks in Germany including country roads to Bremen, Hamburg, and Cuxhaven then on the autobahn to Sans Souci near Berlin. The German roads were well maintained and traffic on the Autobahn 2 was very fast. I was going 145 and was passed constantly. That’s about 90 mph btw and it’s pretty fast for a 9 passenger van. The Austrian highways were about the same. City driving in Austria was like driving in any city in the US, I was in Graz.
There was almost no traffic in Japan. I was on a couple of small islands just south of Kyushu. Tanegashima is a farming island and there is their main space launch complex and little else. Yakushima is mostly a forest owned by the Emperor and there is lots of wildlife. There are so many monkeys that its nickname is Monkey Island. Farming is difficult with all those little bandits around. All roads are country roads especially around the remote south side of the island. There are very few roads across the center because of the mountains. I didn’t have trouble driving on the left except when I wanted to make a right turn and wanted to get in the right lane. Other than that driving on the left was easy. I only used public transportation in Tokyo.
In Boston, traffic lights seem to be regarded as purely decorative.
In New York City, people are so used to traffic jams, many can’t drive nearly as fast as the speed limit when traffic does open up.
South of Monterey California, there is sometimes so much fog in the morning on California Highway One, you sometimes can’t see a thing. So leave enough time to stop and wait for conditions to clear. But the fog sometimes creates beautiful rainbows. Also, there is frequently rockfall on the road , so you may have to wait a few hours before you can proceed.
Metro Washington, DC, near where I live, traffic and roads can be a nightmare. Road labeling is optional. No one can understand many of the traffic and parking signs, especially in VA and DC itself. DC views tickets as a major source of revenue, and unclear signs are very important to that. Some roads reverse directions at certain times of day, and with traffic jams, you can be stuck on them during the reversal. The lane marker lines sometimes disappear, including complex intersections. Avoid metro DC if at all possible.
When the family want to the Uk and Iteland 10yrs ago we let my dad drive since he had driven on the right several times, only issue was he’d hurt his knee a month before the trip so he made a new reservation with the rental car company for an Automatic, didn’t realize until he got there he’d cancelled the new reservation instead of the earlier one for a manual. A partner company had a Toyota Corolla with A/t and had them on the road quickly. After dad walked up to the passenger side and realized there was no steering wheel. When we arrived at the hotel he went to bed and the rest of us had dinner. A Toyota Coroola iM was almost too big on the roads we spent most of the trip on. Dad calls them the finest network fo bicycle paths he’s ever seen. If the tractors coming the otther way we had to back up 100ft or more to find a spot to pull over. This was a tour of our ancestral heritage in the city of Ripon and sites north in North Yorkshire. Our rental parked at the B&B we spent the first few nights in.
