Diplomatic Immunity?

[thirdcrank]

Here's a bit of a totally unscientific test. I've flipped the streetview image I linked above to give the impression of a country with driving on the right. I can't make it more realistic by showing the approach to the major road because the streetview car never made that manoeuvre.

Imagine turning left. Which side of the road do you instintively go for?

[Psamathe]

I've always found switching sides of the road driving a car really easy and never "gone wrong". But I've mostly used cars with the driving side as per the country I'm driving in e.g. in France hired or purchased a French car. Only exception was driving a French car on return visits to UK which is a bit different given the number of years I'd previously driven in UK.

I've no idea what it is about the car driver side being correct for the road side but has always made it easy for me. I've no idea about this case but do US service people and secret agents ship their cars over from the US or do the have local (UK) pool cars or local (UK) hire cars?

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

I only know what I've read in the media about the case itself and I put it in the context of my own experience. I hope that's clear from what I've posted on the thread in the last couple of days.

We've now reached the point where investigations of fatal crashes are discontinued by the police at a fairly junior level and that's pretty much it. The investigations may generally be extremely thorough, but careless driving on its own ie without clear aggravation such as intoxication or prolonged mobile phone use doesn't necessarily lead to prosecution.

The big difference in this case is that the suspect is American with a hint of spying. That's kept the case in the media. That leaves me feeling uncomfortable.

There is a marvellous bit of police dashcam footage in London of all the cars pulling left until one pulls right. The police have to brake pretty shariah, but they are understanding - the car was carrying French plates. The “instinctive” reaction was to pull over, they just did it naturally, which was absolutely wrong.

I take it you consciously feel for the bite point of the clutch and check your Rev counter to match revs at every gear change - or does that just “come naturally”. In the same way you don’t think about balancing when you walk, you don’t think about driving when you drive. You might be consciously going through the various hazards around you, but until something sticks out there is actually no difference between driving on the left of the lines or the right of them.
Even less difference when there are no lines!

Yes, driving should engage the conscious mind, but the act of driving is not something we concentrate on, we look for higher level hazards and let our subconscious do the actual vehicle control - it’s generally far better at it (when did you last kangaroo from a traffic light?)
Turning out of a base like this really should be very limited to force the correct side of the road, r you know - just drive on the left inside. I doubt traffic is heavy enough to make the slight reduction in visibility from driving on the “wrong” side in a US spec vehicle would make any difference - and it would mitigate the risk.

[thirdcrank]

I may have posted before that a now long-retired police chief in this part of the World used to say he didn't like people being prosecuted for what he called "you-and-me offences." He didn't move in the same circles as me so I was never in a position to say "You speak for yourself" but this is something I could easily imagine doing myself. I also believe that the more a driver is concentrating on things like checking for traffic on a major road before emerging, the more likely they are to do something daft like forgetting they need to use the unfamiliar side of the road. Obviously, were there to be traffic on the major road before they emerged, that would be a strong reminder.

[DaveReading]

Here's a bit of a totally unscientific test. I've flipped the streetview image I linked above to give the impression of a country with driving on the right. I can't make it more realistic by showing the approach to the major road because the streetview car never made that manoeuvre.

Screenshot (5).png

Imagine turning left. Which side of the road do you instintively go for?

I've read the above several times, but I still have no idea what point you are trying to make.

[[XAP]Bob]

Here's a bit of a totally unscientific test. I've flipped the streetview image I linked above to give the impression of a country with driving on the right. I can't make it more realistic by showing the approach to the major road because the streetview car never made that manoeuvre.

Screenshot (5).png

Imagine turning left. Which side of the road do you instintively go for?

I've read the above several times, but I still have no idea what point you are trying to make.

It’s a road, if you turn left, which side do you travel on?

[pwa]

If it's a problem with no RHT on bases like this in the UK then it's a problem going to continental Europe for us Brits. Perhaps that argument could apply to us not being LHT now? Why can we get that transition right but us personnel can't? There's no reason which makes this case more about the individual than the transition being wrong.

It is a problem, it's not a mistake I make often, but after a few days in France I pulled off a dual carriageway style road and turned left onto a small road which had no markings at all (i.e. a genuinely small road).
It was only after several hundred yards that I realised that I was on the wrong side of the road, and that realisation was brought about by the oncoming car...

No harm, except probably some additional gesticulating by the driver of the other vehicle, since it was all at little country road appropriate speeds etc. Never got anywhere near an actual collision.

I have done it myself, after getting back in the car and starting off, and just for a hundred metres or so, on a very quiet road with nobody else around, I drove on the wrong side before thinking "Hang on! Something's wrong here." It is very easily done and I resorted to installing a visual reminder on the car, I can't remember what but it could have been a piece of tape on the steering wheel or something like that.

[thirdcrank]

I tried to convert the scene into drive-on-the right, although the only obvious feature of that is that the exit lanes are now on the right. My instinct is to imagine emerging onto the left of the main drag in spite of knowing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. That' just looking - not driving. Now, I do know the vast majority of people get this right or it would be causing numerous head-on crashes the World over, but it's an attempt to demonstrate something of what's involved.

[Vorpal]

I can recall unintentionally driving a motor vehicle on the wrong side of the road two times, and cycling on the wrong side a few times.

The first time I drove on the wrong side of the road was basically the first time I relaxed enough, driving in England, to stop thinking about which side of the road I should drive on.

The second time, I had been working in England for a few weeks, and returned to the US (where I was living). I slept an (almost) normal night, and got in my car to go to work the next day, and pulled out onto the wrong side of the road.


Each time I have been on the wrong side of the road, although there were environmental cues to tell me it was wrong, there was no other traffic. I soon realised and corrected my error, without incident.

I think it has happened a little more often on my bike because there are fewer cues than in a car.

[thirdcrank]

IMO, One of the obvious things about getting this wrong is that it happens at places like junctions - as in this case - and going on from that, my suspicion is that the harder the driver is concentrating on the dangers associated with that road feature, eg looking out for other traffic, the more likely they are to go wrong.

There's nothing innate about which side of the road we drive on, but everybody is socialised into following their own country's system from an early age. The risk is that they revert to that by default.

[Mistik-ka]

On a number of occasions I have toured by bicycle while on holiday in Britain, without any inclination to revert to my native (Canadian) rule of riding on the right-hand side of the road. (I switch my mirror to the right handlebar, which provides a reminder of where I should be riding and where I should watch for overtaking traffic.) Invariably, on my first ride back in Canada I turn into the left-hand (wrong!) lane when I make a turn at the first intersection with lanes marked on the tarmac. (The road that runs past our house is functionally single-lane without markings.) Invariably it only happens once, and invariably I am prompted back to safe and proper riding by the automatic warning system on our tandem bike — an immediate reminder from Her-on-the-back: "David, we're in Canada."

For me it seems to be a question of concentration. Being aware of the increased risk involved in riding on 'wrong' side of the road in Britain, my attention is more fully engaged with riding safely than it is on my familiar home routes.

[millimole]

Only once have I driven on the wrong side of a road. I took a roundabout the wrong way in Spain, in the dark, when I was dog-tired, lost, and frustrated at not being able to find our hotel.
I was confronted by a pair of very bright headlights.
It was very frightening and a salutory lesson about driving when tired.

When cycling abroad I always made a very conscious effort to remember what I was up to. Driving is perhaps a bit too automatic for some of us (mea culpa).

[thirdcrank]

Mention of Canada has me wondering whether it might have made any difference to the level of media interest if the driver had been a Commonwealth citizen from somewhere where it's driving on the right. The wife of a Mountie might be viewed differently.

I don't know the extent of Canadian diplomatic presence in this country or if they would assert diplomatic immunity in a case like this. Perhaps my point is self-serving in that if the media didn't get so outraged about a Canadian driver, a fair trial might not be raised as an issue.

[Vorpal]

There's nothing innate about which side of the road we drive on, but everybody is socialised into following their own country's system from an early age. The risk is that they revert to that by default.

I learned, first cycling, then driving on the right. If you count the years cycling, that was perhaps 20 years driving & cycling on the right, with occasional, relatively short period cycling or driving in the UK (8 weeks or less each time). This was followed by 10 years living & driving in the UK (not just cars, but also farm equipment), with occasional trips to the continent or the US that included driving. We have lived almost 9 years in Norway, which of course means driving and cycling on the right, again.

The risk that I will revert to a 'default' other than the one I am driving in is probably always there, but somewhat higher in the UK than in a country where driving on the right is the norm. I am aware of this risk, and think about my road position on a regular basis. This was part of my point earlier about inattentiveness. Someone who is made aware of such a risk, needs to think about it every time they operate a vehicle on the roads. not just once, but everytime they make a maneuver that could result in being on the wrong side, pulling out, turning, using a junction, etc. The problem is that very many people drive 'instinctively', not just with regard to which side of the road, but very many other things. A certain amount of this is good, because it makes us more skilled, better able to react, etc. Beyond that, it becomes kind of automatic; a state of driving that does not require very much attention. This leads to that sort of thing where people use their attention for other things, like conversations, the radio, or phones calls.

I'm not quite sure where the line should be drawn, between instinct and attention, but I do believe that driving well and safely requires very much more focus than most people give it.

[[XAP]Bob]

Only once have I driven on the wrong side of a road. I took a roundabout the wrong way in Spain, in the dark, when I was dog-tired, lost, and frustrated at not being able to find our hotel.
I was confronted by a pair of very bright headlights.
It was very frightening and a salutory lesson about driving when tired.

When cycling abroad I always made a very conscious effort to remember what I was up to. Driving is perhaps a bit too automatic for some of us (mea culpa).

I'm sure I've mentioned before the first time I got petrol in the states...

It was at night, I pulled off a small road (one lane each way) in the suburbs of Las Vegas into a gas station, started filling up with gas, and then had an amusing conversation with the garage owner and the owner of the car at the next pump - they had inadvertently preached *my* pump, not theirs (US, you go in and pay for your gas, then fill up, then optionally go in to get a receipt for the correct value).

Anyway - after all that I turned out of the gas station onto the *other* road. I could see the kerb about six and half miles away, so turned left so as to be next to that kerb and head back towards our accommodation. I then saw five sets of headlights, and realised that I had just turned left onto a massive road with a median - fortunately I had the time (and easily the space) to simply keep turning, do a complete circle in the road, and find the gap in the median which I had missed due to the angle I emerged from the gas station.

Again, no harm, no foul, but really easy to end up on the wrong side of the road.