We Drive on the Left

And it’s not as big of a deal as I expected

Our driving situation is actually unique in both the country and the world.

One of the first culture shocks of island living is driving on the wrong side of the road.

Well, I guess it’s not the wrong side. But considering that in all other US states and territories one drives on the right side of the road, it’s definitely the other, different, opposite, not-right-side of the road.

Okay, fine, left — the left side of the road.

No, but seriously, you should. Especially you tourists. (You know who you are.)

But, so be it. When in Rome.

Even more unique: our cars are American cars, so the steering column is on the left. I’m not trying to cause confusion here; that’s no different from being stateside.

Note the driver on the left side — of both the car and the road.

As far as I can tell, this is unique to just the USVI. Vehicles in other left-side-of-the-road locales have steering columns on the right. Basically, the USVI is the only place in the world where the driver sits closer to the white line than the double yellow.

Actually, many of the you’ve-just-gotta-get-used-to-it type things here involve driving in some way or another.

For example, this is the understatement of the entire Caribbean.

Surprisingly, after a couple hours (and half a dozen or so iffy right turns), driving on the left becomes pretty natural. It was something I thought would be a much bigger deal when I arrived.

Now, that’s ignoring roundabouts. I have yet to encounter one. I’m told there’s one minor one on the island; I’m not sure what qualifies a roundabout as minor. Regardless, I plan to avoid it like ebola.

My head almost exploded when I rode as a passenger through a roundabout in Saint Lucia a number of years ago. And that’s coming from a guy who loves roundabouts so much he even worked on a quintuple-roundabout building project once. (You can’t argue with their safety record.)

But entering a roundabout driving on the left, moving in a clockwise direction?

Pictured: “Otherwise restricted”

On the plus side, we get to turn left on red, unless otherwise restricted.

Why do we drive on the left? I’m not entirely sure and there’s a notable lack of what I consider reliable online sources for an answer. They range from the reasonable “historical British influence” to the less believable “the donkeys of yore preferred the left”. I guess we know better than to piss off the donkeys.

But all explanations seem to be in passing and none really delve into the topic. I’ll keep my eye out.

While I’ve gotten assimilated to southpaw driving pretty quickly, that doesn’t mean I no longer need to drive defensively. Rarely a day goes by when a tourist doesn’t enter the wrong lane sometime during your day. So you’ve got to always have shields up, lest you become an unsuspecting target.

Nobody wants a casual drive about town to turn into this.

So, after only a couple weeks here, driving on the left comes with minimal thought. My autopilot is back! (Not sure if that’s a good thing..?)

The hard part? Crossing the street as a pedestrian! I’m so used to looking left-right-left! I have to force myself to think about where the traffic should be coming from.

And that invariably causes me to think too much about the direction of traffic and, oddly, sometimes causes me to go back and forth so many times in my head that I end up crossing like we drive on the right. My brain’s way of doing things is sometimes not the most self-serving.

So if I get swiped by a car, you’ll know why.

Video ©FX. Gif ©LucasFilm.
Photos ©2015 by Matt Wade. Follow me on Twitter: @thatmattwade.