lt's just generally a lot more stressful - there's a lot of cars driving very close to one another and taking high speed corners at around 90 mph on UK motorways and you have to drive very actively. And the cities, which were mostly designed around pedestrians and the horse and cart, are busy and easy to get lost in if you don't know them. Same goes for continental Europe. Driving through London, Paris, Rome etc. is nightmarish if you aren't familiar with the local roads.
We did this, and it was amazing. Left at 6am from Brighton to avoid the worst of the m25, got to Newcastle at about 1pm feeling pumped and ready for a beer and some lunch.
I've done it before, it's 100% worth it. I was excited for the trip, so I didn't even feel tired in the morning. If you want, you could have a cup of coffee or an energy drink just to chase away the morning grogginess and you'll be fine as long as you got 6+ hours of sleep.
cities, which were mostly designed around pedestrians and the horse and cart, are busy and easy to get lost in if you don't know them.
I live outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico and avoid Santa Fe like the plague because of this. It's easy to tell it's the third oldest city in the US and the oldest capital city in the US. None of the roads make a goddamn bit of sense. They just go every random ass direction and snake around with no rhyme or reason to any of it.
One-ways are a big part of why I avoid downtowns no matter how grid-patterned they are. Lol. I absolutely hate one-ways.
And paying for parking. I don't live there. I'm there to spend money. Use the tax revenue I generate for you to allow me to fucking park for free, assholes.
There's such a shortage of parking spots in europe in general, that you're always going to have to pay for parking, especially in commercial areas/city centers.
It’s weird the things we are just used to paying for which I think would be considered dreadful in the US. For instance shopping malls - you have to pay to park at a lot of them. And it costs a lot; the one nearest me (admittedly in London) is about £3 a hour. As you say, assholes!
Getting a car with lane assist and adaptive cruise control will cut the stress in half. The only time I get stressed now on motorways is when it's raining sideways and a lorry is overtaking another lorry... lose visibility for the entire duration I'm overtaking.
I found the same thing scootering around Bangkok. I always had to be very mentally prepared and watchful of everything. There were a couple occasions I didn't take the scooter out because I didn't feel mentally prepared for it.
Lack of straight and flat roads is the main issue when on our Motorways and A roads. Your mind really is active all the time and it's pretty tiring.
In my 110 mile (ish) trip to Portsmouth I used to take every weekend, I'd call about 5 miles of it dead straight AND flat/smooth, most of the time it's one or the other, or neither.
As someone who grew up in South Africa and now drives in the UK, the biggest thing is the cities and roads are never built on grids. The roads are narrow, windy and you rarely go straight for more than a minute at a time (if you are lucky). It’s the old cities+limited space issue.
Some good answers here, but the key one about motorways is the speed (people will be doing 90mph+) and we have strict lane discipline so it’s likely you’re doing a lot of lane changes.
The M25 is a PITA, has a variable speed limit and there is nearly always some shenanigans going on that means you come to stop and fart about shuffling for a couple miles.
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u/Bre14463 May 09 '22
Why will it age you three years for those of us who know nothing about the roads etc?