Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road

Well it's all in perspective, I guess. Deplaning in Chicago on our way back from Ireland, we heard an Ireland youth express delight at the prospect of driving on the wrong side of the road. The right side, of course. And I am referring to direction, not correctness, in this instance.

Matt received the lucky privilege of being my chauffer in Ireland, on the pretense of me wanting to save money. Renting an automatic would be at least an extra 100 euros, while adding an extra driver was also at least that much. So me driving would basically triple the cost of our rental car. Congenially, Matt agreed that he would be the guinea pig. I worried that it would not go well.

We'd been distressing over the car rental to begin with (or at least I was) because the websites all seemed to require a national driving permit good for anywhere from two to five years, and the purchase of collision damage waiver, excpet in some cases if you possess a World Master Card. Having recently moved to California, Matt's license had only been valid for about six months. And collision damage waiver was very expensive.

We decided to try to solve this problem by Matt getting an international driving permit from AAA and by me signing up for an AAdvantage World Master Card. Although I hate credit cards, at least I'd get a free flight out of it. After receiving the card I called Master Card to get a letter of rental car coverage, which was also requested by many of the rental car companies. They told me they would send it via email, and it arrived shortly with no mention whatsoever that was specific to Ireland or even any mention that it would cover anything. The text was full of "might" and "may." Shortly thereafter I received the card agreement in the mail, only to discover that the rental car coverage explicitly said it did not work in Ireland, along with a handful of other countries. As far as I can tell, Ireland has a super high accident rate and Master Card doesn't want to deal with it. I have no idea why some rental car companies told you the World Master Card was the only way to go.

So I freaked out again, I resorted to my final option. Renting from Enterprise in City Centre Dublin, not the airport, where for some reason collision damage waiver was included for only a couple extra dollars. It would be much more inconvenient, but I am all about saving money.

After spending a carless day in Dublin, thankfully, we headed to the Enterprise office early in the morning to get a good start on the day. Both google maps and the receptionist at the hotel had some trouble identifying exactly where the office was - it was definitely in one of two places. But the office was closed Sunday. So I called Monday at 8:05 am from the train station, and was given directions to the office. Head under the bridge, turn left, turn right, turn left again, I'm not sure what the street name is, and so on and so forth. And me without a pen.

We had already learned that street names are nearly pointless in Dublin anywhere because they change every other block. Neverthless, I pulled out my map and concluded that he had given me directions to the closer of the two possible locations. We're in luck, since we're carting our luggage on our backs.

We finally get there, and cheery young man greets us. Does not complain about the drivers license, ask for proof of address, or any other thing that could trip us up. Evidently all that worry was for nothing. When he takes us outside to the car, Matt asks him if first gear is to the left. Our helper looks shocked. "Oh dear," he says. "No, he's just making sure the gears aren't a mirror image of what he's used to," I say. "Oh, yes, first gear is in the upper left," he replies. But as we load the car, he adds, "Best of luck to you, then," with a twinkling, apprehensive smile - worried that his car won't be back in one piece, I suppose!"Cheers!"

And off we drove, with a bit of a lurching start, and me freaking out as the the passenger side corner of the car inched close to the cars parked on the street as we made a right.

But from there, it was really all smooth sailing. I had to remind Matt not to drive so far to the left a few times, as he was trying to avoid traffic on his side. A few close calls with bushes, and a few squeaks out of my mouth. That's about it.

For the most part, Matt's driving was not the issue; my navigating was. But that's another story.