Parking in Paris

heres a article if your interested. I was a letter carrier for 10 years. you froze inside in the winter, even with the heat on full blast because the window was always open on a driving route. and you sweated in the summer. it only had a small fan on the dash to blow on you. after the first 10 years I switched to being in charge of taking care of all the mail trucks in my office. loved doing that job.
Here’s What It’s Like to Drive a Grumman LLV Mail Truck Every Day - Autotrader

1 Like

Just for the heck of it I went out and sat in the passenger seat of my truck and tryed shifting gears with my left hand the only way I could do it was if I looked at thought about it where the gearshift was when I tryed to do it like I was driving it did not go well I would thing if I ever had to to it for real it would take a very long time to learn as they say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

2 Likes

sorry I forgot to put the article. its there now

1 Like

Do you know why? Where elevators exist, they are very very small, plus stairways are very very narrow and curve. There is no way you could get anything large up the stairs.

1 Like

I have driven RHD manual trans cars in the US. My brain flipped the pattern it sent to my left hand. I had to think about the gearchange harder.

1 Like

I don’t recall having a problem with the gears but I was happy the clutch and brake were not reversed. That would have been a long learning curve.

1 Like

I am ambidextrous… Generally, it is very helpful. Curiously I write right-handed but I can write mirror image with my left hand, at the same time, if I want. Apparently those motor-skill commands get flipped when they get sent to my left hand.

I drove a manual at that time so I didn’t have to think about shifting, but left handed, I kept trying to start off in 3th gear instead of 1st gear. It took some conscious effort to stop that.

1 Like

Yes but can you do that upside down like my wife? We had a waitress once someplace where we had paper table covers, and she tried to impress us by writing her name and greeting with both hands so it was right side up for us. So that started a contest.

I can’t even cut my finger nails with my left hand and am looking for an electric version.

Never had reason to try to write upside down.

My wife is such a dominant leftie, I have to paint the right hand room corner-to-ceiling for her or really anything that is right-hand only.

A friend had a manual Nissan Pao for awhile here in the US. Every driver reflexively went to shift with their right hand and grabbed the window crank instead. You can get used to it eventually.

1 Like

Don’t take a taxi in Tokyo. We had to do it once to get to the Narita airport in time. It cost $250 for a 45 minute ride. The train would have been about $10.00 each.

I know they make a lot of tools and things for left handers but one thing I not seen is a left handed drill press someone might make one but if they do I have never seen one.

1 Like

I would take the train to Tokyo, often only needed to walk, then again taxis worked.

1 Like

I agree it is bizarre… I used to practice it in school when I was bored.

1 Like

but pretty cool too.

What, that Chevy ain’t got no radio? I noticed the boom box in the back seat. Reminded me, back when I worked, we were having trouble with the cleaning contractor. Saturday they were supposed to be stripping the floors in the lab, so I made a surprise visit to check. Guy had the boom box up to his ear with his right hand and the mop in his left hand doing a little dance. I suppose he was ambidextrous, I dunno. He never saw me and I figured at least he showed up.

I’ve driven on and off, mostly off, in countries where you keep left. Shifting a stick shift with my left hand is pretty easy after about 15 minutes. Keeping left is harder when you get to complex intersections or traffic rotaries. And figuring out where to look for a freeway entrance ramp can be mind boggling.

My most challenging city driving was a toss-up between Toledo and San Sebastian, both in Spain. Toledo had the narrowest streets ever and the thought of trying to reverse out of one was terrifying. San Sebastian is a lovely small city in the Basque region of Spain. I had a swell map of where I wanted to go, but as we got close to the city I noticed that it’s name was really Donostia in Basque and all the street signs were not in Spanish, they were in Basque. It’s a completely foreign language and I couldn’t recognize anything. The sentence “The street names are all in Basque” is “Kale izenak guztiak euskaraz daude.” Right.

1 Like

That is very impressive, but President Garfield had you beat. In addition to being multi-lingual, he was also ambidextrous, and he had the ability to write in Ancient Greek with one hand while simultaneously writing in Latin with the other hand!

3 Likes

That is impressive! And something to keep in my back pocket the next time I play Trivial… NO one else will get that one!