I live in the US, and I'm about to travel to the UK again. I would love to feel comfortable hiring a car, but driving on the other side of the road is a complete mindfuck.
Proposed is a car with no windows. Cameras would be positioned in various places around the outside of the car. Inside, screens would project a simulation of the outside world, but all camera images would be reversed. The steering would be drive-by-wire, with all inputs reversed.
Provided the backward street signs and backward acceleration cues aren't too distracting, the net effect would be driving a familiar car on an unfamiliar road.-- kevinthenerd, Dec 02 2017 Yawn ....but keep working, and searching the 'bakery before posting is helpful Add-on_20pseudo_20SUV_20kit.... Still a good idea though, you and I are just thinking in different axis .... [normzone, Dec 03 2017] Not necessary. I, my wife, and my daughter have all hired cars abroad, and it takes about 2 minutes to get used to driving on the other side.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 02 2017 // I live in the US, //
<applause>
Well done !! Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards recovery.
// and I'm about to travel to the UK again. //
Welcome back to civilization.
// I would love to feel comfortable hiring a car, but driving on the other side of the road is a complete mindfuck. //
Go to france, or Italy ... no-one there cares which side you drive.
It's hard, having spent your entire life driving on the wrong side of the road.
// Proposed is a car with no windows. //
It's called a "tank", and it's Baked and WKTE.
// Cameras would be positioned in various places around the outside of the car. Inside, screens would project a simulation of the outside world, but all camera images would be reversed. The steering would be drive-by-wire, with all inputs reversed. //
Just like an Airbus, then.
Don't use too much rudder input above 200 kts ... the fin breaks off.
// Provided the backward street signs and backward acceleration cues aren't too distracting, the net effect would be driving a familiar car on an unfamiliar road. //
Suggested category: "Asssisted Suicide".-- 8th of 7, Dec 02 2017 I like the idea [+], but does it really take you more than, say, ten minutes' driving to adjust?-- pertinax, Dec 02 2017 Reliable sources (see above) place it at 2min.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2017 Global consensus would suggest the US has actually done one thing correctly for once in choosing to drive on the right side of the road (unlike our private prisons, broken healthcare system, laughable public transit, embarrassing public education...)-- kevinthenerd, Dec 03 2017 I recently drove on narrow barely two way cliff roads in Ireland. It was no big deal. Once you realize they're all driving on the wrong side of the road and will get out of the way if you insist, it was really a snap.-- theircompetitor, Dec 03 2017 No, global consensus would suggest that the US is in a 2/3rds majority. Driving on the right or left is equally easy.
If the US switched to driving on the left, it would then actually be in a larger majority, by number of cars.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2017 This begs the question as to why, apart from cost, no road vehicles are equipped with complete dual controls, whereas almost all 2-seater and above aircraft are.-- 8th of 7, Dec 03 2017 //why, apart from cost//
Well, there's the cost. And then the expense. And also the added price of the vehicle. Those all add up to a tidy sum.
Also, a passenger generally does not want to be encumbered by a redundant steering wheel.
Also, a driver does not want their passenger grabbing the wheel or stamping on the brakes in a moment of panic.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2017 Given that half of the entire planet drives on the opposite side to the USA, surely it's time they woke up to the advantages experienced in the UK, India, Japan, etc.-- xenzag, Dec 03 2017 Not to mention most of the southern half of Africa, Australia, Malaysia... But, ironically, not France.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 03 2017 Since the gallic race are skilled neither in the design and construction, nor the driving, of road vehicles, they need not be taken into consideration- except perhaps as a horrible example to everyone else.-- 8th of 7, Dec 03 2017 //Reliable sources [...]//
The other eight minutes allow for jetlag.-- pertinax, Dec 04 2017 random, halfbakery