We Drive on the Left
The first thing to know about driving on Nevis is we drive on the left. No problem for British folks but we Americans and Canadians have to switch our thinking. For the most part Dave and I had no problem adjusting because we bought a car with the steering wheel on the right. Some folks move their American cars here but I think that would make it harder; it seems pretty natural to drive on the left with a car built for that, aka a Right Hand Drive, RHD.
Driving a car with RHD is easy except the controls are on the opposite sides. It is easy to flick on the turn signal without thinking and end up with windshield wipers running! The other change is that passengers get in the left side door which still confuses me sometimes when the car faces me. Once you get used to these minor problems it’s no big deal.
There is one roundabout on Nevis – no traffic lights – and we go clockwise, i.e., make a left turn to enter traffic and we defer to cars coming from the right. Again, fairly easy. About the hardest part is coming to an intersection to make a right hand turn when there are multiple lanes for turning. Just remember you are turning against traffic, so look carefully, and you turn into the left lane. The lanes themselves can confuse but you will adapt.
Streets Have No Names and No House Numbers
No names mean no street signs. There is one road and a couple of alleys downtown that have names and signs, but every other road is cryptic. You have to know where you are going or follow an internet map program.
Many people give directions with latitude/longitude coordinates. If you plunk coordinates into a mapping program it usually will deliver you right to the right address. Otherwise people give directions by landmarks or sometimes by counting roads or houses, and the mapping programs sometimes are way off.
We used Google maps when we first moved here but quickly found that Waze works better. Google maps seems to work much better now than it did at first; perhaps it had to learn where things are since Nevis is not a traffic hot spot.
Limited Roads
There is one road that goes around the island, the Main Island Highway, which goes through the main population centers of Charlestown and Gingerland and right by the Nevis airport. There is a bypass road to avoid downtown – which is a good thing given lack of sidewalks and parking and the amount of traffic. The island maintains these roads in fairly decent conditions.
However, there are few alternate routes. If there is a bad accident or road construction on the main roads and many neighborhoods there are usually nearby roads to detour on, but in some parts of the island there are few alternatives. The main island road is only 20 (or 24 or 26 depending on whom you ask) miles long but it takes nearly 2 hours to drive in full so you do not want to have to go around just to get by a problem.
Our neighborhood has one entrance/egress street. The other way is an eroded, dirt path along the bottom of a ghaut (gulley) that appeals to some hardy off-road-vehicle enthusiasts. The one real road goes across that same ghaut. The gulley is deep on one side, nearly level on the other, and when it rains up higher on Nevis Peak the ghaut can flood. If too much water flows it can be dangerous to get through. Luckily this is paved although very twisty and steep and has blind spots so you cannot see oncoming traffic.
Roads are Narrow and Congested
Driving here can be a nightmare with chickens, sheep, goats, monkeys, cats, dogs, kids, people all using very narrow roads, especially when it’s dark. People do not show up in the dark and many wear dark clothes so you must be very careful. The island has little flat land so sidewalks are limited to tiny narrow ways downtown, everywhere else one must walk on the road. The ones downtown are considerably higher than the drainage gutters so you do not want to fall.
The roads are narrow, twisty, hilly and often have deep drainage gutters alongside. Going downhill from Gingerland to the roundabout is several miles of curving downslopes where it is easy to pick up speed and with deep gutters. Luckily there are curbs in some places.
There are only a couple bridges plus a few conduit/bridges. Several places have ghauts (think gullies) that one traverses. Last year a severe rainstorm washed away the road by one shallow ghaut causing road closures until the road people got a gravel patch. They since have installed a bridge over the ghaut and repaved the road.
Roads Have Pot Holes
Coming from a rural area that gets winter storms with freeze/thaw cycles, we are used to bad road conditions but we still find the pot holes surprising. The island road people keep the main roads in decent condition but there are a few busy back streets that are more pot hole than road.
Personally I find driving here among the very few things I dislike about living here.
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