When I lived in London I was an excellent driver. I drove everywhere, was aggressive and confident, could parallel park in spaces no more than an inch bigger than my vehicle, and was able to get around in London's busy and manic traffic like it was 2nd nature. I also drove a motorbike and loved that.
You know how it is in London - you approach a junction which has 3 lanes depending which direction you're going in.. which do you choose? The one with the least traffic, of course.
Moving here meant that I had to relax and become a boring driver like everyone else. It took a while. But there's no need to be aggressive here because there's little traffic to fight your way through, all the roads are straight and long, cars are mostly automatic, there's parking to be had everywhere, and you can't go very fast because of the considerably lower speed limits. It was weird, getting used to that. I still have the odd bit of 'London' in me where I'll push someone for the fun of it (you always win, they always back down), but mostly I just plod along like everyone else.
This seems, however, to have had a negative effect on my driving skills. We just got a new car, well a minivan to be precise. We had one in London. But for some reason I'm finding it very difficult to drive. Reversing? Forget it. I can't see enough... the blind spots are huge. Parking? Hah! I can't park the thing for toffee! Mostly due to the reversing issue, I drive into a space and if I am not straight I'm too scared to reverse again because I can't see a thing. G says I've turned into a Canadian Soccer Mom. Damn.
Posted by katie at September 10, 2004 02:54 PM