I lived & worked in the British & US Virgin Islands, where one drives on the left, for some years and was back and forth to the States regularly.
I prided myself in adjusting seemlessly each time I was driving in either location ... but oneday, after having been in the States for about 3 months, I crossed a one lane bridge in where I was living in Wyoming. Something tripped in my brain that I should be driving on the left hand side as I crossed the bridge. The guy in the pickup truck coming toward me on what I thought was the "wrong" side of the road is probably still mystified why I was so pissed off at him for not knowing how to drive.
No matter how well you think you can transition it takes a while for brain a muscle memory to adjust. That was a bit of a wake up call for me.
Chris
--- In st2_owners@yahoogroups.com, HOPPER ELDRIDGE <hoppereldridge@...> wrote:
>
> When I lived in England, I had to keep in mind the left side of the road was the way to go. In a car, your orientation was such that the driver still looked at the center line of the road. But on a bike, well, there is no orientation either way. If a car was on the wrong side on the road or like in a parking lot, it could get confusing and intense in a big hurry.
> Â
> Then when you came back to the States, it was the same thing all over again. In England the chant was "keep left" and in the States it was "keep right"!
> Â
> Cheers...Hopper
>
> --- On Fri, 4/1/11, Ian Ellison <ian@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: Ian Ellison <ian@...>
> Subject: RE: [DucatiST] New TT film trailer
> To: st2_owners@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, April 1, 2011, 3:41 AM
>
>
> Â
>
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>
> 
> Popular opinion on the Island has it that a lot of visitor crashes are Europeans (for some reason German riders are often associated with this) using all the road on the mountain when it's clear and then taking to the wrong side when they see an oncoming vehicle. Not saying it's true but I've heard it voiced more than once.
> Â
> IanE
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: st2_owners@yahoogroups.com [mailto:st2_owners@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Ray Tushingham
> Sent: 01 April 2011 00:39
> To: st2_owners@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [DucatiST] New TT film trailer
>
>
>
> I went to the TT in `08. Absolutely fantastic time, can`t wait to go back. When I went there were no rider fatalities but I believe 4 visitor fatalities. A few people have asked if I rode while I was there to which I replied, "are you nuts?? I`d have to learn driving on the wrong side of the road while sharing the road with 50,000 bike mad riders all trying to ride the same road meant for an entire population of 85,000!! Maybe next time!"
> Â
> Ray
>
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