Monday, December 24, 2007

Stay Off the Sidewalks

If you happen to be on the Southern Island of New Zealand the next few days--Christchurch specifically--you may want to remain indoors. That's right--I've picked up my rental car, and someone moved the steering wheel. Right-hand drive is completely illogical for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the vast majority of us are right-handed. Thus, in the right-hand drive world, our dominant hand is on the wrong side to operate just about every important component of the vehicle. Don't even get me started on why the key is still on the right side, but the windshield wiper stem and the turn signal stem are reversed. Worst part is old habits die hard, and muscle memory is a pain in the tuckus. Examples, you ask? How about (a) every time I go to signal a turn I either spritz the windshield or turn on the wipers and (b) I keep looking up to my right for the rear view mirror, but all I see is the A pillar and sky.

So if you see a car in NZ drifting out of its lane with its windshield wipers going fulltilt--that's just me trying to signal a left turn.

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