Southern Cross: Right Hand Motor Vehicles

Before leaving the Whitsundays, there needs to be a word about an incident with an explanation. 

As we all know, the Australians drive on the wrong side of the road, as do the Brits, Japanese, New Zealanders, South Africans and Hong Kong-ese. To accommodate this wrong headed driving, the Australian driver's license acquisition process is multi-step requiring years of supervision, solitary driving, and finally able to take others for a ride. The US and the rest of the world do not have such an elaborate process since left handed driving comes so naturally. 

My first encounter with right handed driving and roadways came in Scotland, going to the Firth of Fourth and Ben Lomen in the early 1980's. Everything went as planned.

In the Whitsunday's, we rented a car to drive around and see the area. As I have knee problems, to get into the car we rented, I needed to move the driver's seat as far back as possible. After being seated, adjusting the mirrors to be sure I did not have a blind spot behind me, Kathy got in fully confident regarding my driving abilities which I assured her were flawless. I neglected to realize that with the seat so far back, the hood of the car disappeared from my view so that I could not judge the width of the car; hence, I could not see the front of the left side. When I carefully drove from the parking space within the courtyard of our hotel, I did not turn sufficiently and I nudged the blue ceramic flower pot and tree within, cracking it into multiple pieces. Kathy mentioned to me that I was about to hit the flowerpot she could plainly see, but it was too late, the deed was done. I have received some grief from her off and on since that time and it seems that the incident is a favorite of hers, mentioning it quite indiscriminately I believe. Possibly either with the incident in mind or my own trepidations, when Kathy wanted to drive on the road back from Dingo Beach, remember the narrow windy gravel roads, to see what right hand driving was like, I returned the favor of giving her grief.

Anyways, upon our return, I told the hotel booking people about the flowerpot. The following day, I told the owner of the hotel about my encounters with the flowerpot, and both people said: "no worries mate." However, on the day we were to leave, there was a knock on the door, and the cleaning woman said that we had some business to take care of before we left. The business, was to pay for the flowerpot; half of its retail value: $45.00, which I did.

So, the moral of the story for me was, not only do Australians drive on the wrong side of the street, but they build their cars to do so.  One has to accommodate to both the rules of the road as well as the cars made for those rules. Lesson learned.