Today I drove a car outside of Japan for the first time ever. Driving on highways in the rain without anyone else in the car was not a beginner friendly situation. Yesterday I wrote about familiarity, without expecting I would experience it on the next day. In Japan, cars keep the left side, so the driver’s seat is on the right side. Can you imagine how unfamiliar it is to me to drive a car in Canada? I often get on my friend’s car, and driving the right side is not very unfamiliar to me. But the problem was the turn signal. In Japan, for some unknown reasons, the turn signal lever is on the right side, and the windshield wiper lever is on the left side of the steering wheel. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was raining this morning, and my right hand quickly learned “I take care of the windshield wipers”. However, I don’t remember how many times I moved the windshield wipers when I needed to give a turn signal quickly.
Because I was so nervous, I payed attention to everything I did in first some tens of minutes, and found that a driver has to do so many things at the same time to drive a car. Intuitiveness and familiarity help a lot to let a driver drive a car without hustle. Turning the turn signal lever upward to give a right-turn signal is about intuitiveness, and having the turn signal lever on the left side of the steering wheel is about familiarity.
Why did I drive a car today? Because I went to Orillia. Why did I go to Orillia? Because I had a job interview there. Did it go well? Yes, it did. Is it good news? Well, that’s a long story. I’ll talk about it later. This is it for today.