It is, for practical reasons, impossible to be a regular reviewer of cars if you don’t feel comfortable driving them. Not even just comfortable. Confident. It’s probably unhealthy to think you’re Lewis Hamilton, but there’s a sensibility one must possess (or quickly cultivate) that allows you to look at a giant dump truck, or a Bugatti Veyron, or a Cessna-bodied Toyota Van, and think “Yeah, I can drive that.” I have piloted all of the aforementioned vehicles and was therefore completely sure that I’d be able to drive the manual, right-hand drive Ford Puma ST I secured for my first trip to England. I was also sure I’d have no trouble driving on the “wrong” side of the ride. My confidence was, unfortunately, slightly misplaced. The car was easy to drive and the directions were easy to follow. It’s my eyes that didn’t work.
This adventure to England was something of a dream trip. A 40th birthday celebration that would bring me and the family first to Shakespeare’s birthplace and then off to London. The plan was to land at Gatwick, pick up a car, and immediately drive to Stratford-Upon-Avon, some two hours or so to the north. I’ve done the fly-overnight-to-Europe-and-immediately-drive a car bit a number of times with no issue, but always to countries where the car’s wheel is on the left and everyone drives on the right (Frankfurt, Prague, Paris twice).
The sensible way to get to Stratford-Upon-Avon, perched in England’s pastoral West Midlands region, would have been to take a train or a bus. I am nothing if not not sensible. I’d be getting a car.
But what car? It would have to be something I couldn’t get in the United States (no VW Golfs or anything). Obviously, it needed to be interesting to me, but not so interesting that my family would revolt. I’d have one unit of wife, one unit of kid, and enough luggage to last two weeks abroad. I considered a lot of options and landed on what ended up being the best car for the job.
The Ford Puma ST Is A Damn Delight
The base Ford Puma is a weird little vehicle we don’t get. It’s essentially a Ford Fiesta subcompact that, like the universe, has expanded in every direction. Unlike the universe, the Puma prefers to be referred to as an SUV. This would be a small car in the United States, but on the narrow roads of the UK it passes for a family vehicle. The ST version of the car, which I requested, gets a six-speed manual transmission and a 197 horsepower turbo 1.5-liter EcoBoost “Dragon” three-cylinder motor similar to the one in the Ford Bronco Sport.
Ford UK did a tweet about this car back in 2021 and CEO Jim Farley made the comment that he wished the car came to North America:
Wish this came to NA and other markets! https://t.co/QpcXk2zokN
— Jim Farley (@jimfarley98) February 16, 2021
I shared the sentiment then and now, having driven it, I’m more convinced than ever this would be a great car to own in America. Would it sell? That’s a tough question. Given we no longer get the Fiesta on which it is/was based, there is no compelling case for bringing it over here other than “Jim likes it.” That’s probably not a good enough reason.
If you live in Europe, though, this thing is a hoot. The Puma ST weighs about 2,700 pounds, has a punchy little three-cylinder motor, a real Quaife mechanical slip differential if you opt for the performance package (definitely do), and can be had with Mean Green paint. Obviously, the only way to get it is with a six-speed manual transmission.
A Good Plan, A Bad Start
I’ve driven a manual in the RHD configuration before and it didn’t faze me. I’m not particularly coordinated, as any of my ultimate frisbee teammates will tell you, and yet piloting a JDM Nissan Skyline GT-R (R32) on a race track wasn’t difficult. If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball. And if you can drive a LHD manual, you can drive a RHD manual. It’s quite amazing how easy the brain adapts.
Knowing this wouldn’t be an issue, I asked Adrian Clarke, our resident Brit, if there was anything I should know, and he gave me two good pieces of advice:
- When you get to a roundabout, turn left.
- No one in Britain has a concealed handgun, so enjoy as much Road Rage as you wish.
Being from Texas, that last part seemed significant.
Just to be safe, I visualized the entire drive from Gatwick to Stratford-Upon-Avon using Google Street View. While I didn’t cover each mile, I reviewed all of the turns I’d be making, all of the roundabouts, and the key interchanges. Thankfully, once out of Gatwick it was just a quick left onto the M23 and one merge onto the M40. Once off the M40 it’s a short jaunt on the A46 and I’d be in town. I left for the airport feeling confident, though turning into oncoming traffic with my family was something I was understandably worried about. I insisted on taking a car, so, anything that happened would be doubly my fault.
I don’t sleep well on planes so, rather than take a later flight, I opted for a 7pm-ish departure out of JFK on JetBlue’s new London service. We got held up a little bit at JFK trying to depart (they told us our plane would be too fast and land too early and Gawtick has timed arrivals so they hold you up at your departing airport, which is strange). It was a great flight and the new Airbus A321LR in JetBlue’s configuration is a comfortable way to get across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, I still didn’t get more than a glancing wink of sleep.
Arriving at Gatwick approximately on time, I grabbed a rare caffeine hit in the form of some real British tea and met our delivery driver to get the car. After a little mental gymnastics, I figured out where to put the car seat relative to where I was sitting. I acclimated myself to the interior of the Puma and stuffed the back with gear, which it easily took.
The delivery driver wished us well and off we went from the 4th floor of a Gatwick airport parking garage. As expected, shifting was no problem. Your feet do the same thing and the motion is quite similar, so what’s the big fuss? I assume if you don’t drive stick often this might be an issue for a few seconds, but my daily has a manual so it was super easy.
I usually don’t have an issue in parking garages, as years of driving randomly sized cars require one to get used to constantly shifting car dimensions. The trick, really, is to use your mirrors. You’ll almost never run directly into an obstacle. If you make a mistake, it’ll be behind you more often than not. So I intently tracked my driver-side mirror to make sure I wasn’t running the bulging rear fender into an Opel. Unfortunately, I didn’t consider the left side of the car (which looked clear) and managed to drag the wheels of the car down a long kerb.
“Oh no,” I thought. “I’ve been driving in England for all of 50 yards and I’ve already mucked it up!”
The Two Things I Didn’t Think About It
I sucked it up and followed the path I’d already run on my laptop onto the M23. This was, like shifting, quite easy. I couldn’t unclench my stomach and felt a tang of anxiety about the wheels, but at least I was awake. My daughter, in the back, is impervious to bother and a great traveler so she quickly went to sleep. My wife had a slightly different experience.
Selfishly, I thought so much about driving the car, I didn’t think about what it would be like to be in the front passenger seat. It’s weird! If you’re used to driving on the right side, sitting in the passenger seat is strange. I later tried this in Adrian’s Ferrari and I felt a little uncomfortable, though you do adjust. This was the first thing I didn’t consider.
Fears of being too tired to drive were allayed by the mixture of adrenaline and novelty. I also felt very good about myself for, you know, taking so easily to driving in England. “I’m basically Jason Statham!” was my internal monologue.
The shifter in the Puma ST isn’t exactly a short-throw design, but it felt a lot quicker than the one in my 530i, which is basically a truck. I enjoyed chirping the tires a bit as I approached the M23 and my family only groaned a little.
Merging onto the motorway was straightforward and I eased into the left lane which, in England, is the slow lane. I felt great, but my wife pointed out I was way uncentered in the lane. “No, I’m perfectly in the lane with plenty of room on each side” I insisted. And then I actually looked. Oops.
My Brain Isn’t As Flexible As I Thought
Unless you’re in a McLaren F1, if you’re in a regular car then you are either on the left side or the right side. Centering the car isn’t difficult in your home country because your brain takes the input from your eyes and tells your hands to guide the car slightly to one side or the other to compensate. Years and years and years of driving LHD cars over hundreds of thousands of miles and my brain is fairly decent at staying in a lane (if I’m not too busy talking).
For whatever reason, driving through a roundabout in a backward way was not particularly hard for me. Keeping the car in the center of the lane was surprisingly difficult. My wife constantly would chide me “You’re getting out of the lane” and damned if she wasn’t right. If I didn’t focus intently on keeping the car where it was supposed to be my brain would naturally overcompensate in the wrong direction.
This led to a sudden bout of exhaustion as an hour of deep focus is a bit too much on 90 minutes of sleep over the course of 30 hours. I pulled over to a services (their version of a roadside service station), got another tea and a banana and tried to rouse myself for the last hour of the trip. The little bit of good news is that the wheels and tires were fine. The kerb must have been super low and no damage was done.
The first thing I did when I got in the car was to turn on the lane keep assist, which helped. The biggest change I made, though, was driving in the fast lane, which is all the way to the right. When I was all the way to the left my only reference point was the line in the road, which is hard to discern in traffic. In the fast lane, I had a divider to use as a mental signal that I was starting to drift to the left. I lost this when we got off the motorway and onto a two-lane A-road, but at least there the oncoming traffic was coming towards me and not my passenger.
Ultimately, we arrived and I was able to park the car easily in our little hotel. I was exhausted and the room wasn’t ready, so we wandered out into the village to grab some obscenely rich and delicious British pastries. I’d planned a trip through the Cotswolds in the Puma ST with the family but they were unenthusiastic about the prospect, so I went off on my own little drive so I could enjoy the Puma ST without bothering the other occupants.
After catching the Royal Shakespeare Company, getting some Shakespeare liquor, visiting the Shakespeare birthplace, seeing the other place where Shakespeare used to live, seeing the place where Shakespeare’s wife was born, and buying a bunch of Shakespeare-themed gifts, we left for London. The drive back was easier and my brain, thankfully, adjusted itself. I was also completely awake and it wasn’t raining, which helped. Everyone told me not to drive in London, so I ditched the car at Ford’s garage and kept to buses, tubes, and boats.
I’ll definitely head back and, when I do, I have a long list of cars I want to drive. Now that I know all the things I thought would be hard were easy, and the one thing I didn’t consider would be hard, I think I’ll be better prepared. I kind of fell in love with the double-decker buses and I bet I could drive one of those…
I’ve driven on the left a fair bit. Canadian-raised and residing, but I just got back from a trip that included a 5000km loop around South Africa in my dad’s Hyundai Venue, and then across southern England and back in my mum’s ’08 Fiesta w/ a dead centre console/radio and never any AC, a trip which also included stopover in Stratford Upon Avon.
My main annoyance with right hand side driving is having to rely on my not-so-dexterous left hand to work the ventilation, navigation, music etc. No longer needing to wield a whip or sword, my extremely competent and precise right hand has little to do but keep the wheels pointing straight while my left is careening drunkenly around the touch screen.
What I like about using my left hand is that it feels like someone else is shifting the gears.
What I like about using my left hand is that it feels like someone else is… Nevermind… ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My first taste of wrong hand driving was a Mercedes Vito van in South Africa. I just got it down when I learned that they put speed bumps on 70MPH highways and only mark them with a small picture sign. I sent one poor jetlagged person laying in the rear all the way to the roof. Fun times.
I drove a French AX ( so left hand drive ) for something like 20 000Km in UK, and for me the most difficult was once I got back to France after a year in UK…
For a month I had a tendency to go to the wrong side of the road when there wasn’t any traffic in sight.
Edit : one more thing : Driving was much more relaxed than in France, even n a massve traffic jam on the M6 near Birmingham ) due to an accident, nobody honking the horn, nobody trying to force it’s way changing lane… just everybody staying in their lane and waiting.
If there’s one thing the Brits can do better than anyone else, it’s queueing.
You really should export it… Because from my Frog point of view it’s an asset.
Try queues in France… it’s always messy. ( when it’s not an unholy mass of people trying to get in front of each other, to the point of fighting. )
Yes I hear the Brits are almost as polite as the Canadiens and don’t require every sign to be in English and French.
Why do they call it English when it is really just an accented American?
We don’t have French on our signs, but in Wales the signs are in Welsh and English. Must be tricky for to tourists from LHD countries, trying to drive on the correct side of the road, while also trying to work out wtf “Ffordd ymlaen ar gua” means.
Thankfully, sometimes, the signs might also be in English and Welsh rather than Welsh and English.
Not that tricky, I managed to go to Portmeirion ( twice, with different people ) despite the Welsh signs.
Having a few pair of eyes not busy driving helps a lot.
Edit : now despite driving more than a few time in Wales, I never had to pick up a friend at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch station.
Never saw a French sign in UK… beyond Cul-de-sac, and this one is self explanatory… or refers to Tolkien.
Et je devrais appeler le Québecois un Français avec un accent ou l’inverse ? ( déjà qu’l y as pas mal d’accents en France )
“No one in Britain has a concealed handgun, so enjoy as much Road Rage as you wish.”
COTY (Comment Of The Year).
Turning left at a roundabout would scare me to death each time!!
I got to spend 6 months in Scotland many years ago. The only issue I had with driving was parking lots. For whatever reason, once I started looking for a space, I’d drift over to the right-side of the aisle.
I’ve always been perplexed as to what I would do for a UK vacation. Would I opt for their public transit, which I’m fascinated by? Or the forbidden cars, which I am also fascinated by?
Do both seems to be the way.
Public transport can be pretty rubbish outside of urban areas (and pretty terrible in cities too sometimes tbh), so you’ll need a car if you fancy visiting somewhere like Stonehenge. On the other hand, most UK cities can be pretty miserable to drive in, so take public transport there.
(Actually, don’t got to Stonhenge, go visit the Avebury circle instead. It’s only just up the road, and it’s so big there’s a whole village in it, with a pub in the centre)
Before my first time driving in Ireland, a local expat gave me some advice: “just remember that the driver is always in the middle of the road.”
That definitely helped for the first trip, and the 1800km road trip went by with very little fuss. I found it all to be really easy. Enough that in my latest trip, my parents (who were convinced prior to the trip that this was a huge problem and wanted to hire tour guides) also realized it wasn’t a big deal.
My biggest problem when I was in Australia was almost breaking my right elbow when swinging my arm over the seat to get a view out the back window while reversing.
collective ‘doh!’ from the peanut gallery.
Driving in the UK wasn’t too bad for me, it was remembering to look right and then left before crossing the street.
That’s why they paint “Look Right –>” on the ground at crosswalks in the touristy areas of London.
Yep, I really appreciated that when I was there!
I’ve spent time in the UK the past few summers for business and fun. I totally agree that lane centering is difficult, my wife definitely yelled more about this on the first trip than the subsequent trips.
Rather annoyingly, the natives have a fondness for painting important roadway information directly on the road surface, rather than an overhead or side of the road sign. This sometimes makes picking the “correct” lane to be in prior to a large roundabout difficult, especially with heavy volumes of traffic when people are sat on the road surface signage!
Country road shoulders and widths are also hilariously unpredictable. A few time this summer I was on roads in southern England and they would be a reasonable width, for two cars, albeit rather close, with brush/hedges on both sides of the road. Then the road would progressively narrow to just the width of a car and then open back up again. Why can’t they maintain the road width the entire length of that road?
I haven’t damaged any of our UK rentals. And for the past two summers we’ve used Avis Prestige with their meet-and-greet service at Heathrow, which is incredibly convenient and offers tremendous time savings. I did get a ticket last summer for £25 for driving in a bus lane in Oxford…
Anyway, for anyone worried about driving on the wrong side, don’t worry too much. Just be aware of your surroundings and of the information painted on the road surfaces instead of overhead/roadside signage.
Driving in England was easy when I did it last year. I’ve had a RHD manual car here for several years so I was already used to driving on that side and learned how to adjust my lane positioning years ago. But I was concerned that I’d zone out and end up on the wrong side of the road. However, that didn’t happen to me once. I’d say by day 2, it felt completely natural and I wasn’t even really thinking about how I needed to stay on the left side of the road anymore.
Unfortunately, I did not get a fun rental car like you. I got a Fiat 500 hybrid which I very much did not like. It was enough to get me around town but was extremely slow and not in the “slow but fun” kind of way. It was the slow and boring kind of way. Also it’s barely even a hybrid so you never even got that extra electric motor torque to help make it feel more fun.
As a Brit currently living and driving in America, who has also used a LHD car (Fiat Barchetta) as a daily in the UK, and driven RHD cars in France more times than I can remember. I’m amazed about how hung-up Americans are about driving on the left and RHD cars. I rather suspect the sleep deprivation was more the cause of the anxiety and road positioning than the wheel being on the otherside.
Was it red?
Yes it was
I have driven with a Brit in America in a LHD car, and he was hugging the right side of the lane very tightly/ going over the line at times. I didn’t say anything at the time as I knew we weren’t going far and he had been driving here for about 3 months. Later that night over drinks I mentioned it and all the other co-workers there said the same things about his driving.
Because I don’t have no diplomatic immunity.
I spent a year driving a RHD car in Italy during the week, then a LHD car in the UK over the weekend.
Having just done the very same thing a couple of weeks ago, this hits all of the the right notes. It takes a bit of time to stop looking up and right, for the rear view mirror that’s on the left side now. Lane assist was already on in my car, but that did not stop me from hitting the passenger’s mirror on a car parked on a road to Bath ( a 650 Pound error, get the CDW). The only Issue I had with the Peugeot I was driving was that the 1-2 Shift you really needed to push on the Gear level, or you’d be doing a 1-4.
Yep, I’ve done it three times: once in the UK (London to Edinburgh and back), once in Ireland, and once in Barbados. The only things that gave me fits were the traffic in Oxford (so many bicycles!) and a stop sign at a T-intersection. I turned left, instinctively pulled into the right lane, and my wife screamed “LEFT!”. Luckily there was no one around…
If anyone is THAT worried about the shifting, just put a buddy in the drivers seat of your favorite manual and then shift for them. We used to do that on roadtrips when we would grab a burrito to go. Driver has one hand on wheel and one on burrito. Passenger has one hand on stick shift and one on burrito. Its pretty intuitive if you already drive stick.
Burritos sound good. Getting hungry…
Interesting story a few decades ago got pulled for a dui4. Cop took me to hospital for bac. Not over legal limit. So called my mom to meet at my car to have her drive me home because he felt I was unsafe. Well my Honda DX was a manual and mom not a manual driver required me to tell her when to clutch then I shifted. She did great but when we got to the roads and hills she insisted we switch. Because despite her agreement with the cop I was buzzed she felt me driving was better than her driving. She passed last year and boy do I miss her.
Sorry for your loss. That’s a fun bonding experience.
My very first experience driving any RHD vehicle was in a Lemons race. Oh, and it was a slow manual trans car.
Nothing speeds up the learning curve like being thrown on track with 90+ other cars zooming by you. I figured it out pretty quickly.
Thankfully my first experience driving in left hand traffic on the street in Australia was much less stressful thanks to automatic transmission.
Oh and said car was an MG Metro which I think Mike Harrell owned at one point.
That was indeed mine, an ’82 1300, before it became Spank’s. I passed it along to him after I got hit by a guy in a red-light-running SUV. Spank is the one who caged it, although I ended up being team captain for its first race as part of the transfer agreement. See if you can detect the subtle damage from the SUV at its right front corner:
https://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LWA15/360-UG-_MG_8538.jpg
This MG Metro was also my first experience with driving a RHD car. It was actually a pleasant little thing. What ever happened to it?
I believe Spank sold it a few years ago to someone who intended to cut out the cage and restore it. The collision drew my attention to a fair amount of rust that had been hard to see before the damage, which was the main reason I didn’t want to fix it myself for continued street use, so I don’t envy anyone this task.
By the way, it’s this car, from before BaT became an auction site:
https://bringatrailer.com/2010/06/25/bat-success-story-1982-mg-metro-hauler/
I’ve driven on the left side of the road a few times, and almost never an issue, but plenty of short-term brain-locks when someone would refer to directions as “left” and “right.” So last time we went to Ireland, we tried out the idea of never using “left” and “right”and I instead one of my daughters or my wife would use her hands to tell me where to go if I needed directions, or in some cases “your side” and “my side.” It worked like a charm. I never thought about where to be and instead just worked with traffic as I saw it.
Just a few weeks ago I was contemplating this, wondering how hard shifting with my left hand would be, and wondering if the pedals were in the same order. So thanks for resolving all that!
22 years ago my mom and dad went to England, not for the first time. But for whatever reason my dad screwed up a roundabout and got into a serious accident—nobody hurt, but IIRC he totaled the rental car. Hilariously, he had to spend the night in jail: supposedly the police had no choice (maybe so he could see the judge in the morning?), and were terribly apologetic. I was absolutely delighted to be able to mock him for this.
ah, maybe all the other drivers on the road were shrieking in fear, but my only awareness of driving wrongly on the wrong side of things, was that i couldn’t retrain my eyes on the rearview mirror. i kept flicking my glance to heaven. Day one (of the rental) in Dublin to day 5 pulling into Shannon. My passenger only seemed uncomfortable once, when i dodged an oncoming bus in what seemed like a single-lane lane between Ennis and Doolin. Might’ve maybe mounted halfway up the left hand hedge that time.
I had a similar experience driving in Ireland. The two things I kept messing up were lane positioning and looking over the wrong shoulder when backing up. Seriously, I had the car for three days and every time I went to back out of a parking spot I looked over my right shoulder straight at the B pillar.
I will say I would never have been able to do it the day I arrived. Fortunately, I spent a couple of days in town before trying to drive so I had time on buses and at crosswalks to get used to traffic being on the other side of the road. My first day I was in a panic though because it broke my jet-lagged brain to drive on the left.
Based on the existence of the Murano CrossCab, the key here is to change “Jim likes it.” to “Jim’s wife likes it.” 😉
My first drive in the UK was in a LHD VW vanagon- not reccomended
Who runs Bard-er-town?
I don’t know if you used it, but the Transport for London app is really helpful, giving you A-to-B directions using the Tube: walk here, get on this train on this platform heading in this direction, get off at this stop, etc.
PS If you remain unruffled and/or nonplussed by something, it didn’t faze you (not phase).
Oh bother…
Silly old bear.
Probably didn’t phase him, either.
Before my wife and I left for Scotland, I had read about all the US visitors that returned rental cars with damage on the left side. Either kerb scrapes, mirrors knocked off, or door dings. We agreed, before leaving, that whoever was riding, would just shout “KERB” if the driver was getting to close to the left side of the lane. This worked like a charm. No fumbling for the words you want, no bad feelings, just trying to keep from having a repair bill on return of the vehicle.
We still use it today back in the US, on the narrow roads around where we live now.
Does it still work if you shout CURB?
That’s what we shout when we are back home … 😉
That SAAB 96 appears to be a remarkably early V4 car. The DVLA shows it was first registered in October 1966:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52561763561_44d71993e9_b.jpg
That’s a survivor! Love it.