During road repair in California, they made us drive in the left lane behind a "guide" vehicle. I never really saw any reason why we did this as the right lane was perfectly all right. I guess the yellow straps and the yellow stripes on the road drew my attention.

[JimS_256]

Thank you all for your humourous quips. I think Caltrans was repainting the yellow lines on the Pacific Coast Highway (Route 1) in the middle of the road and didn't want cars to cross over and mess the fresh paint spray.

I figured it must be something like that.

Now, the car was an AT... I'd wish it'd been a manual transmission; I do not know how shifting gears with the left hand would have felt...

I'm a hard core manual transmission guy. I've never (for my daily driver at least) owned an AT and I'm 72 years old. I've visited the UK twice and rented cars with manual transmissions (try doing that in the US) . It takes a little getting used to but not much and it was fun, as were the roundabouts.

[edom31]

I've visited the UK twice and rented cars with manual transmissions (try doing that in the US) . It takes a little getting used to but not much and it was fun

So, are the gears flipped (so then 1st gear is top left, 2nd gear bottom left...) or is it the same pattern?

[edom31]

I've visited the UK twice and rented cars with manual transmissions (try doing that in the US) . It takes a little getting used to but not much and it was fun

So, are the gears flipped (so then 1st gear is top right, 2nd gear bottom right...) or is it the same pattern?

Edit - I cannot tell left from right...

[JimS_256]

So, are the gears flipped (so then 1st gear is top right, 2nd gear bottom right...) or is it the same pattern?

Edit - I cannot tell left from right...

It's the same pattern. That's one of the things that took some getting used to since (for some reason) I expected it to be flipped.

[edom31]

It's the same pattern. That's one of the things that took some getting used to since (for some reason) I expected it to be flipped.

Ahh, I'd expect the same, yes...

[RICHARD L.]

While traveling in France and Switzerland years ago (driving on the right side of the road like in North America), I leased a frog-green "Renault 5". It had a miserly 1100 cc engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. The shifter behaved like it was a spring stuck in butter at the bottom. Worst car I ever drove. I lost both side mirrors while traveling around Lac Leman between Lausanne and Geneva ... lol ! Better take the train in Europe, for real.

Regards