Playing dodgems

After living here for three weeks, why is it that I still cannot work out how to cross the road?

I need a guide for beginners or at least a lollipop lady to help me from A to B when it comes to trekking across the gigantic six lane roads they have here!  It doesn’t help that I automatically look right then left before crossing the road and that for some weird reason cars can turn right on red lights.

Every time I step off the pavement ready to tackle what feels like the 100m sprint I genuinely fear for my life. Forget mini coopers, Peugeot 106’s or tiny little smart cars that seem to be all the rage in London. Here Trucks rule the road. Giant SUVs tower over you, one foot in the wrong direction and they’ll flatten you in seconds!

If the abnormally large roads weren’t enough already, the confusing lights certainly don’t help my case either. On the ‘walk screen’ instead of a green man letting you know it’s safe to cross, a little white man appears and I find myself shouting ‘White man!’ at the road to warn drivers I’m about to embark on my journey. I’m not quite sure that’s the most appropriate thing to be shouting in the Deep South, but for my own piece of mind it seems to be helping. That is until the white man disappears when I’m only half way across and a timer comes on and starts ticking away like a bomb about to explode. As the pedestrian crossing sign counts down the seconds I start asking myself ‘can I actually make it all that way?!’ It’s really quite frightening.

This place isn’t built for pedestrians. I feel like a very small child in need of a mother to hold my hand and get me to safety, but with my mum on the other side of the world, the only advice I can give to any incoming international students is bring a car!