Danger Comes From the Right (and then the left)

Connie has already written about the danger of  driving on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, but there are a lot of more subtle  dangers that exist here.  One is in walking across a street.  Drivers in Port Elizabeth are for the most part courteous and traffic is orderly, so you would think that crossing the street would not be a big deal.  But we unconsciously look to the left as we start crossing.  Here, the first cars you encounter come from the right, and it is easy to step right in front of an oncoming car.  Bradley,  our guide on multiple trips, has given us a mantra, "Danger comes from the right," to help us remember to look the correct way when we start to cross.

There are other subtle differences.  When driving, even when you remember to drive in the left lane, it seems difficult to judge how close parked cars are on the left hand side.  It shouldn't be any different than when driving on the right, but it is.  My friend, Dan, gave me a tip that I have found extremely useful.  He suggested that we subconsciously position our body in the appropriate place in the lane, which is a bit to the left of center in the US. In South Africa, we need to consciously position our body a bit to the right of center.  When you do that, you find the car is in the correct part of the lane.

Danger can also come from small things.  We are very conscious of potential large dangers.  With the ocean, people worry about rip tides, sharks, and other large dangers.  This morning while walking on the beach, we encountered hundreds of small jellyfish (called bluebottles or Portuguese man of war), most no bigger than a quarter, but some having a long thin tentacle as long as 4 feet in length!  They look like little, innocent, almost translucent things, but as a wave came around our feet, one wrapped its tentacle around Connie's foot and she received a nasty sting.  

Portuguese Man of War with coin

Portuguese Man of War