Shared the driving with my mum, though I also did this trip but it took twice as long as I was in a 14 hour traffic jam in Kent before getting on the ferry (not an exaggeration)
14 hour traffic jam? How do you pull that off as far as food, sleep and poop? Fthat refugee style travel.
It was the day after the Brexit vote IIRC, so the French border patrol thought it would be a good idea to step up their security checks on the British side of the channel as some sort of perverted punishment. In doing so they were fully checking every single vehicle passing through the port that day. Fair enough, but they only had 1 (ONE) person doing it. Emptying out thousands of cars etc. This created a traffic jam the likes of which I have never seen. Food was ok as we had plenty in the car. Sleep was ok as I just slept sporadically in the driver's seat. I nodded off for a couple of hours at one point and woke up to find the traffic hadn't moved. Didn't need a poop, but I just walked down the verge to have a pee a couple of times. We knew it was bad when people started getting their bicycles off their cars and riding around, and kids on roller skates came up and down the queue. about 1/3 of the way through loads of people were walking down the road to Dover. 3 hours later they were back with carrier bags from our equivalent of 7/11 and we'd moved about 100 yards in the meantime. The real kicker was that about 10 hours into this, word came back up the queue that they'd stopped emptying everyone's vehicle. By the time we actually got to the port they didn't even check our passports! it was 24 hours door to door from Nottingham to Guînes with a couple of stops for a 2 year old.
Probably fine as he went home after his 8 hour shift and didn't have his holiday shortened by some jobsworth bureaucrat.
I'm thinking of possibly coming to Europe again, mid year, and doing some more of Europe, and also UK. Is it better to hire RHD while in UK and then switch to a LHD for Europe? or just keep the same car and travel across? @Veyronman I assume you drove your RHD vehicle into France no problem? People obviously do this all the time over there?
I thought the Brits were all about queuing nicely without complaining. They probably thanked the dude.
When driving in the States, in junctions with two lanes going left, cars would often line up in just one lane, even though the other lane would be clear. We never quite figured out why that is, but the general assumption was that people automatically queue, thinking the drivers ahead might know something they don't or whatever. An Israeli would always take what they think is the shortest route, even if it means bending a rule doing so.
If you mean lanes that turn left, it's because they're oblivious idiots and think it's only one lane that turns. You can count on at least one of the drivers to turn wide into the other lane. The street that goes to my neighbourhood has two lanes that can turn right. It never fails that some fucktard almost hits someone while turning even though there is a sign and painted lines showing both lanes turn. I've even had an idiot go straight from the right most lane, which is right turn only, meaning the fucking painted line doesn't go straight. Yet that missed abortion thinks driving straight almost into me seemed logical. I said **** it and missed my turn just to chase the person and road rage the hell out of them. Drivers are the fucking worst here. It's like the videos you see of Russian drivers. But, at least in Russia, it's because they either don't care or because they're drunk. Here, it's because no one can comprehend how to actually pilot a vehicle. /rage post
couple reasons to do that if youre not at risk of missing the light or backing the queue up into other lanes if the lane you want to be in after the turn is left or right, or if you want to pull into a drive way its better to just already be in the correct lane instead of having to change lanes in a tight window after a light if there is a merge from after the 2lane left turn its simpler for 4 cars to be already be in the same lane then to have 2 cars merge with 2 others. again, if its 16 cars then yes it would be foolish for them all to use one lane. that would defeat the purpose of having the double capacity 2 lanes provides
It would depend where you start really but if you're mostly in Europe I'd get a LHD car and put up with it whilst in the UK. I have no real issues with driving RHD France and such. Only issue really is visibility at some junctions and overtaking. I have pulled out of a minor junction and onto the wrong side of the road before, but only once! If you start in the UK you can only rent a RHD car as far as I know. At least, I've not heard of anyone renting a LHD car to take to the continent. So you'd have to think about how long you would have to put up with it in Europe.
Those are obvious. I'm talking about situations where there's no logical reason to choose one lane over another. They would just line up like sheep.
The queueing was done in a very British fashion, but I'm certain there would have been some who gave the people on the gate an ear-bashing when they finally got through
If that happened here, there would be a lot of fighting over getting ahead and probably a bunch of violence.
We eventually just resigned ourselves, as a collective queue, to the fact that we were all in it together and made the most of it. Thankfully it was warm and sunny and almost everyone was on their way to the port to go to the continent so their cars were stocked up with provisions. There were plenty who came down the queue sharing their own food and drinks.