About never stopping “at the lights”

Everybody in Scotland warned me about the same thing before I left for the US. “Be careful, they drive on the wrong side of the road over there,” people said.

In the knowledge that owning a car in America is not a matter of choice, it’s a necessity, I was told over and over again to make sure I didn’t carry on driving on the left, like we do in Scotland.

The truth is it took less than half an hour to get the hang of what side to drive on. The roads here are busy – they are also pleasantly wide and “roomy”. Yes, everyone drives on the right so it would be pretty dumb of me to drive straight into the oncoming traffic.

Another slightly odd rule of the road is that you can turn right even when faced with a red light if it is safe to do so. Again, that doesn’t take too long to get used to.

But there are other driving quirks over here that it took a little longer to catch on to. They left me perplexed the first few times I encountered them and, even now, I still have to keep my wits about me. To my mind they make certain aspects of driving in the US inherently more dangerous.

First of all, bear in mind that unlike Scotland the road network in the Phoenix metro area is one huge grid system. All the roads travel either north-south or east-west. It means there are hundreds of major junctions (or intersections as they are always called in the US).

Now remember in the UK being told that, when the traffic lights are showing red, to “stop at the lights”. Well if you stopped “at the lights” over here you would run the risk of being in a serious accident. For the simple reason that, as you approach an intersection there is only one set of lights facing you – and it is at the “other side” of the junction.

So if I stopped directly in front of the lights my car would be sitting in the middle of the junction in the path of a line of traffic. During the day it’s easy enough but in the first few weeks of driving here at night, it was more than a little confusing.

The second, and perhaps more dangerous intersection manoeuvre involves pedestrians. In Scotland, if the pedestrian crossing lights come on, all cars have to stop, simple as that.

Not here. If, for example, I was travelling north and wanted to turn east (or right) at an intersection I could make the turn when the green light is signaling (or at a red light if it’s safe). However, at the same time as I am being allowed to turn east, the light is signalling that pedestrians can cross north to south.

In other words, I could turn right at a green light and plough straight into a crowd of pedestrians. Obviously the pedestrian always has the right of way and the onus is entirely on the driver. But it doesn’t change the fact that motorists and pedestrians have permission to cross the same stretch of road at exactly the same time. It’s quite frankly daft and highly dangerous and I wonder how many people have been killed and injured as a result.

One final curiosity – one that gives the lie to the phrase United States. Do not expect the road signs and signals here to be the same throughout the country. They are different state by state, city by city and town by town.

I remember driving in the town of Gilbert – where you turn left at an intersection when the green arrow shows. Then I crossed a road into the city of Mesa where some junction light sequences include a flashing yellow arrow indicating that you can turn left but only if it is safe. So you can pass your test in one city and discover that the signals are different in the city next door.

Confusing eh? Driving on the wrong side of the road is the least of my worries.