Left Side Driving

One of the initial challenges of living in New Zealand has been the
transition to driving on the left side of the road.  We toured around
Auckland on the city bus and didn't attempt driving in the big city,
so our first experience driving was in Hawera.

The first thing I noticed is what in aviation we call negative
transfer.  Negative transfer is when behaviors and habit patterns
learned on other aircraft either don't apply or are down right
dangerous when transitioning to a new airframe.  My first dose of
negative transfer happened before I even began driving as I tried to
climb into the driver's seat of the airport cab, thinking it was the
front passenger seat.

It never occurred to me how deeply ingrained control location was
embedded into my muscle memory.  Right drive cars are backwards in
every respect.  The blinker is on the right side of the steering
column, the gear shift is on the left side and you have to look up and
left to cross check the rear view mirror.  I turned the wipers on
fifteen times going for the blinker that first day and I kept reaching
into the door panel to find the shift lever.

The driving part isn't all that bad once your established in your
lane, but errors creep in insidiously.  I have to think very careful
pulling into or out of parking lots and I'm routinely on the wrong
side when driving between cars in a parking lot.  The times that I've
wound up on the wrong side of the road have been when I'm distracted
with the kids or some such or I've just pulled out of a car park (NZ
term for parking lot).

The creepiest manuever is making a right turn across traffic.  I know
in my head that the traffic I have to worry about is ahead and to my
right, but I have this nagging feeling that I'm going to get speared
from someone coming up from behind in the right lane.

Fortunately, most of the unease with left driving has subsided.  Some
intersections still give me pause, but driving around Hawera is
routine.  The next thing I worry about is flipping my head around when
we get back home.