I've put 4,000 plus miles on my RHD TR6 over the past year. All of my
driving has been in the San Diego/Los Angeles area. Several listers have
already pointed out some of the good/bad points - some quite humorous
albeit true. Let me first say that I lived in England and Australia for
several years and was used to driving RHD cars. It was quite easy to catch
on as it all works when driving on the left side of the road similar to
driving on the right with LHD cars. So let me mention a few additional
things I noticed when driving RHD cars in general and when driving on the
right side of the road.
General things:
Rear view mirror - you have to look up to the LEFT! I don't know how long
it took me to instinctive look left instead of right. I just remember
looking right and seeing only daylight out the right window!! Have a
mirror on right door helps. My TR6 has mirrors on both doors.
Turn signal indicators - are always on the outside, in this case right
side. Once again I had to learn new reflexes. Turning on the windshield
wipers is not a good substitute for the directionals!
Driving on the right:
It's a blast! I have more fun taking right hand turns. You can look out
the right and have the car take the corners really tight! Making left
turns is fun too as I just go out and hug the outside "line" while turning.
Even when not making sharp turns, I tend to hug the white lines along side
the road. That way I know I'm not inching over towards the centre line.
One word on passing. The roads in Southern California are wide enough that
you can see ahead quite clearly most of the time. The exception being
tight corners and I wouldn't overtake under that situation anyway. I give
myself enough room between me and the car ahead to get a save view and then
zip around the car in front. Maybe having the 150 bhp engine makes that
manoeuvre easy!!
I've been asked many times why didn't I have the car converted to LHD after
I had in imported. I simply explain that one of the major reasons I bought
the car was because it was RHD!!
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 09:36:16 -0400
From: Ed Hutchinson <seah@sunyit.edu>
Subject: RHD TR6
I was wondering if anyone who owns a right hand drive TR in the states
would be willing to share their thoughts on the good points and the draw
backs of this set up.
thanks
ed
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