- Rest up! If you’ve just arrived on a long-haul flight, it might be better to rest for a night or at least a few hours, rather than picking up a car immediately from the airport while trying to learn how to drive the other way.
- Familiarize yourself with the positioning of the mirrors, gearshift (in a manual transmission car), seatbelt, turn signal, and wipers before taking off.
- Even though you’re driving on the left, the order of the pedals is the same – clutch on the left (for a manual transmission car), brake in the middle, and gas on the right.
- Take it slow – it’s better to take your time, especially when negotiating turns and traffic, until you get used to how to drive on the other side.
- Use another car in front of you as a guide to orient yourself.
- Be mindful of how much clearance you have on the left side of the car – you might not have an intuitive sense of this at first.
- Remember that turns are opposite – to make a right turn you will need to pass through oncoming traffic (like a left turn in the righthand-driving world) while to make a left turn you just round the corner (like a right turn in the righthand-driving world). Be especially careful when pulling out of a driveway or parking lot.
- In Namibia, it is illegal to make a left turn at a red light.
- Slower traffic keeps left, and passing is on the right.
- When entering a roundabout, give way to traffic coming from the right.
- When you go back to your own country, take your time driving again – you may have gotten more used to driving on the left than you thought!
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