What’s it like driving a right hand drive?
This is a common question. Usually followed up by, "Is it safe to drive a right hand drive?"
Clearly these questions can be translated to, "Is is safe to drive a right hand drive in a left hand drive country?"
The answer really lies with the person behind the wheel. That being said, driving an RHD in a LHD country does have it's gotchas, but they're not as bad as you might expect.
In a straight line, it's the same. It feels strangely not unusual to be 'driving from the passenger seat'. If you think about it, you've sat in the passenger seat of a car quite a few times in your life... now there just happens to be a steering wheel there. But, you know where the car should be sitting on the road and it doesn't feel awkward. Shifting with the left hand (given you have a manual transmission) is also surprisingly natural. And, consider this. The majority of the population is right-handed. Should your dominant hand be doing what's keeping your alive (steering) or not (shifting). So, it actually makes some sense!
In a straight line, it's the exact same dangerousness (let's make up some words!) as driving in the far left lane in a multi-lane one-way. Really, not that hard.
Where you will get a little hung up is turning. Left turns across large intersections can be a little tricky. Usually, in a LHD, you can nose in and try to look past the vehicle across the intersection that's also trying to make a left turn.... even this is often hard in a LHD. In a RHD you're further right in the car and have to nose even further in to see past obstructions. It's not often that it's an issue, but it can be.
The blind spots in RHD are similar to LHDs, but the mirror image. One thing that keeps catching me is this: when doing a right-on-red I nose into the intersection and turn a little to the right. This shifts my passenger up a bit and no they're in my line of sight. Easy to fix. Either lean forward, ask them if there is traffic, or don't have a passenger. After a bit you don't do that any more. There are the same problems when you're driving a LHD, but you don't think about them anymore. The same thing happens in an RHD. You just adjust and forget about it.
There are some publications saying how dangerous RHDs are in LHD traffic. SAAQ (Quebec's public insurance) has published a document detailing their statistics in attempts to show that RHDs are a menace on the roads. I feel that this document is flawed, but won't get into that right now. They make some good point, and is overall a good read. I don't think that it's sufficient evidence to stop insuring RHDs.
ICBC (BC's public insurance) has published a document in the same vein as SAAQ. ICBC has acknowledged that the findings are difficult to interpret since there are no sure-shot ways of discovering whether or not a car that is insured is right hand drive or not.
Both of these documents have their valid points. There is major points for skew though. They, again, are worth the read.
Overall, it's the same, just different. It's no more dangerous than any other vehicle if you're paying attention and not driving like a moron. Some (maybe even most) of these cars that are brought in are high power cars that are difficult to not drive like a moron. This might be the problem, but it's a problem with the drivers, not the cars.
rob
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