Riding on the opposite side

[BanannaMan]

Originally Posted by petevtwin650

So I guess you must be thinking of flying Old glory over here and hiring a Harley, BM

I have secured a hire bike for the AR this past week!
May have found the perfect bike for the trip!






Don' be silly... that's not it!!!

There are a few slight differences.

My hire bike is:
Not a Harley Davidson
Not a cruiser
Not a v-twin
Not Black
Does not have a giant flag attached.

And I'm not the bald git in the pic.

haha i wwnt to france last year and i was chatin away to a english guy in a garge about the bike as we al do and i completly forgot i was in france and i went on the wrong side of the road i didnt realise until the car coming towards me was flashing its lights at me lol ..

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

Don't think they'll be letting me hire a bike with a handfull of offences.

To be honest they probably wouldn't know! My wife has a French license and when she got caught for speeding the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency here (DVLA) set up a "temporary account" which they then added points to, if she accumulated 12 points on this temporary account she'd be banned from driving in the UK. But from the registration they could trace her to her UK residential address, and send he the appropriate letters requiring her to name who was driving. If you speed past a speed camera on a rented bike, that letter would go to the rental company, who would reply to it with your American address. From that point it probably would not go any further. Even if it did and the DVLA set up a temporary account, rental companies do not check anything with the DVLA when you rent a vehicle, unless there is something wrong with your license paperwork and they need to confirm it, in which case they can phone up the DVLA, but it's not standard procedure. If you did have a temporary account the police could check if they stopped you, but again if all your license and rental paperwork is in order, they probably wouldn't check anything.

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

Call me a septic....!

Why, you gone all green and smelly?

Originally Posted by garynortheast

You'll get used to it pretty quickly. Just be careful when making left turns at junctions - it's all to easy to forget and end up driving on the left hand side again.

I will so second that ((aaahhh big car))

Oh, on the OP of driving on the opposite side, having a French wife I do it quite a lot and it is absolutely no bother, my brain just switches the other way round, BUT that does have the consequence in my case that my right and left switch as well. So my wife can be giving me directions and say "go right" and I'll go left, because my brain is associating the action of crossing the opposite carriageway, or going 270 degrees round a roundabout, with going right.

I also find that the only time I have to think about what side of the road I should be on, is at Dover when I come back to what I should be very used to, especially on approach to roundabouts

I'd love to hear that somebody else suffers from the same two issues when driving abroad, but unfortunately I think it may just be me

[BanannaMan]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

To be honest they probably wouldn't know! My wife has a French license and when she got caught for speeding the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency here (DVLA) set up a "temporary account" which they then added points to, if she accumulated 12 points on this temporary account she'd be banned from driving in the UK. But from the registration they could trace her to her UK residential address, and send he the appropriate letters requiring her to name who was driving. If you speed past a speed camera on a rented bike, that letter would go to the rental company, who would reply to it with your American address. From that point it probably would not go any further. Even if it did and the DVLA set up a temporary account, rental companies do not check anything with the DVLA when you rent a vehicle, unless there is something wrong with your license paperwork and they need to confirm it, in which case they can phone up the DVLA, but it's not standard procedure. If you did have a temporary account the police could check if they stopped you, but again if all your license and rental paperwork is in order, they probably wouldn't check anything.

Hire contract states:
Any hirer incurring any penalty or fine issued by any authority, will be liable to pay for the penalty and all costs associated with settling such. Hirers will also be liable for any penalty points incurred while a bike is in their possession.


Don't know if they can back up their claim on the points (especially in the US) but when you sign the contract you agree to pay all fines, which they place on the credit card used to hire the bike.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by BanannaMan

Hire contract states:
Any hirer incurring any penalty or fine issued by any authority, will be liable to pay for the penalty and all costs associated with settling such. Hirers will also be liable for any penalty points incurred while a bike is in their possession.


Don't know if they can back up their claim on the points (especially in the US) but when you sign the contract you agree to pay all fines, which they place on the credit card used to hire the bike.

This couldn't be the case here. The obligation is upon the hire company to identify to the courts the driver should you commit an offence for which you were not stopped by the police. The hire company would not be hit with the fine and pass it on to your card. Only the courts can collect fines. A police officer may issue you with a fixed penalty ticket. But that is paid to the court.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by timwilky

This couldn't be the case here. The obligation is upon the hire company to identify to the courts the driver should you commit an offence for which you were not stopped by the police. The hire company would not be hit with the fine and pass it on to your card. Only the courts can collect fines. A police officer may issue you with a fixed penalty ticket. But that is paid to the court.

That's not true.
All penalties raised by Local authorities etc. are charged against the vehicle & it is the owner that is responsible so that includes parking and traffic sign contraventions

[BanannaMan]

Hoping NOT to find out about the fines!

In traffic or riding with a group I have no problem behaving, but alone on a lightly traveled road, I tend to have difficulty keeping the bike anywhere near a speed limit.

Originally Posted by timwilky

This couldn't be the case here. The obligation is upon the hire company to identify to the courts the driver should you commit an offence for which you were not stopped by the police. The hire company would not be hit with the fine and pass it on to your card. Only the courts can collect fines. A police officer may issue you with a fixed penalty ticket. But that is paid to the court.

Originally Posted by Stu

That's not true.
All penalties raised by Local authorities etc. are charged against the vehicle & it is the owner that is responsible so that includes parking and traffic sign contraventions

I believe the US equivalent is a non-moving violation, so Banannaman, these may end up being charged to your credit card.

I know you wouldn't speed past a speed camera just to "test" the system, but if you do get flashed by a camera, I wouldn't worry about it you're very unlikely ever to hear about it, and it won't stop you from hiring a vehicle here in future.

There are grandmothers here who have never had a speed ticket in their lives, and drive 2000 miles a year, who now have points on their license due to a speed camera. Often located in a place where they weren't expecting it, on a road where the speed limit is inappropriately low for the scenario and conditions, and hence a normal driver naturally reverts to driving above the speed limit during a lapse in concentration.

We have rural dual carriageways that have been 70mph since speed limits were introduced in the 70's, which have now been reduced to 40mph for no other reason than to get drivers speed down a mile before they enter an urban area, it doesn't feel natural for drivers to do 40 as they are still on a dual carriageway with fields on either side. We also have a lot of our rural roads that have been perfectly safe since the 70's at 60 mph speed limits, being reduced to 50 or even 40, for no good reason whatsoever, in fact there is evidence that it is increasing accidents as it's not natural and habitual for drivers here, and is causing impatience, frustration and causing normally law abiding motorists to hold a disregard for the speed limit.

It's very easy to get caught for speeding by a camera in the UK, being caught by a patrol car less likely as there are less and less police on the road as the government relies more and more heavily on cameras. Offences that cannot be detected by a camera sunch as drunk, unlicensed, uninsured drivers, etc, have been on the increase year upon year.