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Comments on Sunday 19 April 2009:
The series of unfortunate events didn't continue on the day of car-collection - I managed to drive out of Miami (which involved driving in Miami - I was glad of automatic gears for what is apparently stressful driving at the best of times) and for a couple of hours afterwards with no major incidents. We also went snorkelling since we were there again anyway, which was fairly nice despite the currents being a bit much (high tide on a choppy day). I was quickly reminded why you don't breathe all the way out while snorkelling (if water comes in at the wrong moment you can't blow it out), but apart from that it was all good.

The driving probably doesn't sound like a big deal at all to Americans, nor much to most people, but there are several reasons it was fairly major - ie. I'd previously driven for a grand total of about 3 minutes since my driving test, and none of my driving lessons covered driving on the wrong side of the road or any of the weird American driving rules. British drivers would, I suspect, all be horrified by four-way stop signs, crossroads at which people take it in turns to go based on who got there first. It just looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Also the traffic lights rules (which aren't even consistent between states) - a green light when you're turning left doesn't mean go here, it means "check for people coming from your right, then go if there aren't any". A red light when you're turning right also means go if there's nobody coming. [18:14]

Wally
Bah, 4-way-stops are an incredibly efficient mechanism, although the rules are slightly more involved and include conditional instances based on the concept of right-of-way. Consider also (at least in Canada) that the right-on-red can actually be a Left-on-red if you are at the juncture of an appropriate one-way street.

RavenBlack
Roundabouts are more efficient than 4-way stops, because (assuming it's in a position with good visibility) you often get to keep your momentum too.

Wally
No argument there. Alas, here in Edmonton, they have been slowly replacing roundabouts with traffic lights.

Not to be confused with the one major roundabout that is equipped with said lights.
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