Learning to Drive…Again

Surprisingly, moving to Australia didn’t require us to take any sort of driving test. Because we come from another Commonwealth country, our licenses are recognised here even though Australians drive on the opposite side of the road than we do at home – crazy!

After spending 7 Christmases in Tobago, Rob is a pro at driving on the left side of the road. But I never did much driving there so it was still all pretty new to me. I think the hardest thing to get used to is adjusting your thinking for left versus right turns – those are opposite now too in terms of which one requires you to cross traffic. One trick I’ve relied on completely is to always remember that the steering wheel must be beside the centre line. Doing this helped me visualise which lane I was supposed to be going into.

You would think that since we are used to driving on the right side of the road, that when you switch to driving on the left, you would hug the centre line. Not so. I really struggled the first few days in keeping the car towards centre. I was almost always crossing the line onto the shoulder of the road.

Fortunately, you do adjust quickly and after about a week or so of driving, I was feeling comfortable. I quickly learned to use my mirrors to keep checking I was centred and got the hang of it.  I still find the roads quite narrow in some places and driving at night is a bit stressful (mostly because I’m afraid of hitting a kangaroo!). I’m still practicing reversing into parking spots too. Reversing from the opposite side of the car is the strangest experience!

It is amazing though how quickly your brain adjusts. Recently, I had this bizarre experience of watching a television show with someone driving on the right side of the road, and it looked so odd! I wonder if I’ll have to adjust again when we visit Canada, or if I will just naturally start switching back and forth. We’ll see!