Advanced Driving Hub

Driving West along Beachy Head Rd this morning (I’m on holiday) I encountered an oncoming car heading towards me, on ‘my’ side of the road. It took a split second to convince myself it wasn’t just avoiding some hazard, and actually was driving on wrong side, which it was. I dealt with this by stopping dead close to the nearside verge (nobody behind me), pulling on the headlamp stalk, and planting palm on horn. Oncoming driver turned out to be LHD, quickly got the message, and returned to correct side of road in plenty of time with an apologetic wave. I did my best to return a sympathetic smile, and on we all went.

But I’ve been asking myself… are there circumstances where safest option might have been something else, like maybe swerve right and pass LHD style? I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to do that, yet it could ultimately be a life saving tactic?

I had a "circumstance" last year. I was pootling along merrily when a car shot out from a side road without any attempt to slow or stop. I instinctly braked and steered left but as the other car didn't slow down I ended up hitting him. If I had steered right to go behind him all would have been well, but instincts do funny things.

I thought we were about to have another offsiding debate.

GTR1400MAN wrote:I thought we were about to have another offsiding debate.

Your jest made me think of a more serious link with off-siding, that I don’t remember seeing in previous discussions…

…in the circumstance where a visitor to UK has lapsed into ‘subconsciously’ driving on the right, and he/she should catch sight of an oncoming driver or rider that is off-siding, even if it’s otherwise safe and a long way distant, might it dangerously reinforce the visitor’s subconscious belief that all is well with the world?

Another Bill wrote:…in the circumstance where a visitor to UK has lapsed into ‘subconsciously’ driving on the right, and he/she should catch sight of an oncoming driver or rider that is off-siding

Here we walk straight into something that irks me strongly.

Off-siding in Police driving circles is defined as being across the line on approach to a blind left bend so, in those circumstances, the visitor will only see this if they're following.

The natural language usage is clearly what Bill was thinking about. I reckon almost nobody looks a long way up the road and, if it's far enough away, it'll be difficult to be certain which side of the road is being used.

Another Bill wrote: Oncoming driver turned out to be LHD

... returned to correct side of road in plenty of time

Few years back, at the Isle of Man TT, several fatalities of German riders

... who didn't.

IIRC several signs were placed to remind European riders.