English Traffic Patterns

Since arriving in the UK, I've been inspired by others to write down all the little cultural differences that I notice. Of course, we all know that there are a plethora of cutesy nomenclature differences that amuse us all, but I figured it would be a good thing to start writing them down so I could remember them all.

We rode the bus to Hampton Court on 10 Monday. I was actually looking forward to the 1.5 hour bus ride, because 1) I would be in a motorized vehicle, and 2) by going out of the city, I would get to see some British infrastructure other than Oxford. I've been stuck within a five mile walking-radius for about two weeks now, since we landed at Heathrow, and I was looking forward to getting back on a a major highway. Maybe I'm missing I-95? Or just driving a car? Both, probably.

I sat in the first row with my friend, Jen, so that I could have a good view of the highway and road signs. It might seem a bit weird how excited I was about the actual bus ride, but there I was with my notebook and pen scribbling down all the roads we turned on and keeping track of the directions. It went like this:

Leave South Parks Road from out in front of Herford College
South on St. Cross Street
Left on High Street
Over Magdalen Bridge
Down St. Clements Road
Down Headington Road
Down London Road
Get on the A40
Get on the M40
-Diversion (there was "bad traffic" on the M40)-
Take the A404 towards Berkshire
Take the M4 East
Take the M25 South
Take the M3 SW towards Richmond
Take the A308, and you're in Hampton
Arrive at Hampton Court

The significance or purpose of this exercise is debatable, but it was important to me in my mind. I wanted to know where I was on a map if I looked. It turns out that "M" stands for Motorway, and "A" (or "B", "C", "D", etc) are just prefixes to indicate an access road. I know this because I asked the bus driver's girlfriend; she was very nice.

This lead me to take down all the other interesting traffic patterns and such that the British have. Here are some:

• They drive on the left side of the road. On a major highway, one feels as if you're in the HOV lane, but you just can't see the other highway that should be on you're left...
• The exits are on the highway are on the left. Weird.
• The RIGHT lane is the FAST lane, and the left lane is the slow lane.
  
• The driver sits on the right hand side of the car.
  
• You shift with your left hand.
• The traffic lights flash yellow before they turn green! I thought this was really cool! It's like "on your mark, get set, go!" They also turn yellow before it turns red.
• The traffic lights in Oxford are like the ones in DC; on the side of the street. But here, they are on both sides.
  
• The speed limit is denoted by a number in a red circle.
  
• "Give Way" means yield.
• I saw a road sign that said "Queues likely"
• The intersections here are confusing. I don't understand them.
  
• The street signs are very ambiguous...this is true all throughout Oxford. The names of the streets are usually posted at the bottom or middle of a building. Thus there are no actual street signs. This proves to be pretty confusing. And they are not at every intersection. So if you miss the name of the street, you're SOL.
  
• Bicycles are everywhere in Oxford! They are very good about sharing the road. Bikes MUST drive IN the road. But they do not always obey traffic rules.
  
• There is a double yellow line on the very edge of the road to denote the bike lanes. In the middle, to divide the road, is a broken up white line. Totally opposite of the US.
  
• To indicate an intersection, the white lines turn into these zig zags.
  
• For pedestrians (like ME), they have these awesome crosswalk points. You press a button, and if you are not on a major road, it actually STOPS traffic and enables you to cross! It beeps to you and the little green man flashes. If you wanted to be really mean, you could just walk down the road and mess with traffic by pressing all of those.
  
• Also, I must talk about the buses in Oxford. You have to wave them down, they don't jsut stop where they are scheduled to. They have an excellent transportation system here, if you want to ride the bus. The bikes and other motorized vehicles share the road, which can turn out to be quite frightening. It's really quite crazy; they bus rides right alongside the bike lane, inches away from them! About two months ago, I bus ran over and killed a biker.
• I do not own a bike.

I walk everywhere, which I enjoy immensely! It just takes longer. But think about it this way: it would take me 30-45 minutes to drive to Mason, park, and walk to class. It takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk to the center of town, 25-30 to walk to St. Cross (where the lectures are at) and about 30-45 minutes to walk to Jen's house down St. Clements. So it's really quite a normal commute time for me.

There is actually a lot of traffic on the main roads in Oxford, too. Particularly on High Street and St. Clements, because of the construction going on.

About cars: they have cars made by the same manufacturers we have in the States, except they are smaller and just look more European. Here is a list of what I have seen so far, or at least have bothered to write down:

• Mitsubishi
• Volvo
• Ford Fiestas
• Vauxhall
• Citron
• LOTS of VW's
• Mini Cooper (lots of these too)
• Jeep
• BMW
• Honda (only a few)
• Mercedes
• Peugeot (LOTS of these)
  
• Audi

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. In fact, I will be on the look out to add to it.

Of the few gas stations I have seen, there was a BP with gas for 94.9 pence a liter.

Now I must go do research and get my paper going. I will update my notes on traffic patterns as I continue to jot down what I notice.