Mucky

Geordie beat me too it, but here is another view..

http://www.armin-grewe.com/holiday/w...roundabout.htm

Muck

jmw44

What a wonderful thread! Obviously, you ask a good question, you receive great answers. Have a wonderful trip dcsam, and come back to tell us how it worked out.

Now, me. I am left-hand challenged. Is it possible to rent an automatic in a very small car? Are they twice the expense of a manual? Don't flame, please, and thank you. J.

Tulips

And don't worry about it too much dcsam; I managed to drive around Hide Park Corner more times than I care to remember, without a scratch, and I'm not British. On rural roads you will have no problem. One thing I do know I have to watch out for when driving on the left, is that I tend to go too much to the left, in danger of driving off the road even.

akila

dcsam:

If you have driven in the Bahamas, I don't think you're going to have any problems driving roundabouts in Ireland; every time we have been in the Caribbean, we have felt like drivers are crazy there! To be quite honest, we loved the roundabouts --- it makes traffic flow so much smoother and, at large intersections, we didn't have to wait for long stoplights. And, unless you are driving in the larger cities, most roundabouts we came across were very small (usually one lane). Galway was a little stressful because those roundabouts are usually four lanes and they have stop lights in the middle of the roundabouts, which confused us at first. Make sure your navigator does a good job telling you what exit to take --- that is the key!

jmw44 - we rented an automatic in the smallest car Dan Dooley offered - a Ford Fiesta. The automatic actually was a manual/automatic, and we could switch to manual if we wanted which was occasionally useful when we were trying to pull the car up mountainous roads. It is about twice the cost of an automatic but I think well worth it.

bornintheusa

I just got back from 16 days driving over 2500 miles in the Southern part of Ireland. I too was nervous but roundabouts are great--don't think they would work here in Los Angeles area due to too much traffic though--roundabouts are basically intersections without a light but is a circle with 3-4 exits off of it. There were several times we missed our exit off the circle so we just went around the roundabout again until we found the sign for our exit. We loved them!!!

jmw44

Thanks very much, Akila. J.

dcsam

Once again.... terrific information. You're all a wealth of information. These links helped a lot. Now I feel somewhat prepared and I know what to expect. I WASNT planning on even using a map, but now realize I may have to. I was hoping to go on simple, written directions. I'll check out those map links now. Again, thank you so much!
Caroline

kmg21

Melissa5 and bornintheusa: have you not been to Long Beach? We've got a roundabout here on Pacific Coast Highway - I love it! Works great except when you get people who don't have any clue what to do. You should have come down here to practice before your trips!

mrsd1

bornintheusa: Did you write a trip report about your Ireland trip? I'd love to read about it.

janisj

"I WASNT planning on even using a map," No, no, no!! . . . .

"but now realize I may have to." - There is no "may" to it, you must get yourself a good road atlas. You can wait until you are in Ireland, but wherever you buy it, GET one.

Trust me you do not want to rely on written directions.

akila

Absolutely 100% buy a map. You will use it ALL the time. Although cities are very well marked on signs, if you don't know the country and which small city you are going to pass through, you will end up lost without a map. The trip directions are only so useful because you may want to go off your planned itinerary. I LOVE the Michelin Tourist atlas, which I found in a Barnes and Noble here, before we left but you could easily pick up a good map when you get to Ireland. And, if you are a AAA member (which most of us are), go and get their Ireland map for free - at least you'll have something.

Melissa5

Yes you need a detailed road atlas because even with written directions you may take wrong turn and without a map you will have NO IDEA where you are or how to get back on track.

With our road atlas we were never lost for long.

We discovered it was best if we ALL read the map and understood where we were going before each drive...both the driver and all of the passengers. When I said one passenger should read the signs, that would be the passenger in the front seat, because he/she can see the signs better. Of course the driver can see the signs too, but the driver has to keep both eyes on the traffic too!

The passenger who is actually holding the map during the drive cannot read the signs because he/she is reading the map!!!

I think somebody above misunderstood me. Of course everybody should read the map in advance. You don't want a navigator in your car who hasn't read the map in advance and is doing last-minute guessing.

No, by the way, I have never driven on the round-about that somebody mentioned above in California.

dcsam

Thanks yall!
I have a Michelin map on hold for me at Barnes and Noble. I'll stop by and pick it up on our way to the airport. Will give me something to do during our long flight.

JP

That one in Swindon must be the one I came across years ago, when I finally decided that the best way to proceed was to close my eyes and ignore the honking.

Until then I had thought that the dreaded triple roundabout of High Wycomb was the worst it could get.

bornintheusa

We used the Michelin map for our 13 days of driving and it was invaluable--most of the roads have great signs but there were lots that had no signage anywhere and you have no clue where you are headed without the map-- I was the driver and sometimes it took both my friends armed with maps to get us to some of the sites--
Mrsd1--will write about my trip in the next day or two!!