Dutch Driving vs. English Motorway

“Can you reach it?” My wife asked with the calm of someone forced to keep her focus on the task at hand despite the chaos going on around them. It was comforting since we were zooming down the motorway at over a hundred kilometers an hour and she was the one driving.

“Almost,” I replied as I continued to twist my body from the passenger seat beside her towards the back of the car where our two children sat. I was trying to reach the small, out of sight cuddly bear that our two year old son had just dropped somewhere in the narrow space between his child seat and the rear car door beside it. It was his favored toy, a fact he was reminding us of by crying very loudly at its loss.

“This one, Matthew?” our five year old daughter asked as she waved another of her own toys in his face in an attempt to offer him an alternative. So far Princess Twilight, Skye and Floppy Bunny had all been refused.

Normally we would have waited until we could pull over somewhere safely to retrieve the lost toy but the M25 around London is not famous for its abundance of places to stop. His reaction to the whole situation was adding a sense of urgency too.

“Can you see it?”my wife asked, her voice the same.

Her calm was impressive. She wasn’t only having to deal with the distraction of a crying child and a husband (me) attempting to perfect his contortionist routine while she sped down the motorway. She was having to do all that while driving on a side of the road that is un-natural to her. We were in England on holiday (on our way out of London towards the West of the country). The English drive on the left side of the road. The Dutch drive on the right. We’d got into the habit of quickly saying, “left, left, left,” whenever we approached a junction or roundabout. Ironically, it was me that got it wrong the most. In my defence we were driving in a Dutch car which added to my confusion.

“No but I think I can feel it,” I replied as my fingers brushed something soft and furry. Hopefully it was the lost toy. It also could have been the sponge for cleaning the window. From my awkward position I really couldn’t tell.

As I tried to work it out I briefly noticed the car behind us change lanes and speed passed. It was a normal action to see on the motorway but something seemed urgent in their movement. I shook it off and put it down to them being in a rush to get wherever they were going.

“This one?” our daughter asked while holding out a toy car. It too was refused, this time with an increased raise in the volume of crying.

But I had noticed something similar earlier. Before the cuddly bear incident we’d been rocking out to the radio and I was sure I’d noticed a few cars avoiding us. I didn’t think our performance had been that bad. It had been weird. Was I just imagining it?

“Want to read something?” Our daughter offered our son an eye spy book of cars. It was considered in a moment of silence that lasted for a second. I really had to get that stuffed toy.

As I forced my body to twist farther between the passenger and driver seat I momentarily locked eyes with the driver of the new car behind us. I saw her whole body tense. Her eyes went wide with fear. She too suddenly changed lanes to move away from us. What was going on?

I knew what I was doing was not the most responsible thing you can do as a passenger. It’s generally not a good idea to climb around a confined metal space as it hurtles along a narrow lane surround by lots of other fast moving obstacles but her reaction took me by surprise. It had been as if she’d been in immediate danger herself.

I would have expected such a reaction if we had been driving on the wrong side of the road but we were driving on the left. Why would… It suddenly dawned on me. We were on the left and so was our steering wheel. Any driver who momentarily glanced in our direction, specifically at me, without realizing we were in a Dutch car would have thought I was the driver. I suddenly became very aware of what I was doing. To them I was not a passenger trying to retrieve something for his children from the back seat. I was a driver who was paying so little attention to the motorway in front of him that he was looking backwards and didn’t have his hands anywhere near the steering wheel.

That also explained why cars had been avoiding us during my passionate air guitar solo of We Will Rock You.

Suddenly my fingers got a grip on the small furry object and pulled it free. It was the sponge. I gave it to our son out of desperation anyway and he suddenly became quiet. I think it was more out of confusion than anything else.

For the rest of the holiday I became very aware of what I was doing with my hands when I was not driving.