DRIVING WHILE "DISORIENTED"

No, I'm not referring to what probably first comes to your mind when I say driving while disoriented. I'm not talking about being intoxicated or anything of that nature.

Last week when I was at home, the athletes were given rental cars during our stay to get around. For the first several days, I refused to drive. Why, you might ask? Well the reason is pretty simple. In The Bahamas, we drive on the left hand side of the road and as a result of living in the US for quite some time now, this switching sides of the road can be an instant mind bender, to say the least!

Your brain is fighting you all the way, especially when it comes to making turns. Do I make a hard right? Do I a make a wide left? Then just to add insult to injury, most of the cars are also right hand drives, so the steering wheel is on the other side of the car. And then just to make sure you really get confused, the turn signal is on the right of the steering wheel and your windshield wipers are on your left hand side. Confused yet??? I can't tell you how many times I turned on the wipers when I was trying to make a turn!!

Trust me, every time I go home, I have to take a few days to get in sync with everything before I get on the road like a maniac and kill innocent bystanders, lol. This time was no different. You have completely different cues when you sit on the right. You have to judge the far left hood of your car in relation to the walls, people, the sidewalk, etc and some of our roads are extremely narrow. And why don't we have left on red? I'm still not sure I understand.

One last thing, unless you're from there, you'd never know this unwritten rule. Once the clock strikes midnight, you can pretty much ignore all the traffic lights. You're pretty much free to stop and go as you please!

Oh well, I managed to make it out unscathed although when I got back here to LA, I realized that my mind had already switched and I had to adjust all over again.

PS. OK mr. pitbull, maybe this little chihuahua, isn't the best driver in the world....I'll finally give you that:) But I bet you'd have trouble too...