Driving in reverse: My experience with the Smart Car in England

"Stay left," I said nervously as my husband pulled out of the Europcar rental lot at Branford Leeds Airport. "The left is your friend." I hoped that my eyes weren't popping as far out of my head as I felt they were. I don't remember the last time, other than this, my kneecap attempted to shake itself free or my intestines tried to invert. With wet fog thickening around our Smart car and the crumbling left edge of the road seeming to creep up on our vulnerable alloy wheels, I practiced yoga breathing.

Just after noon, we'd boarded the train at King's Cross in London and headed for Leeds. Be it known that the train is fast. Whip-fast. Dizzy-fast. Fast like two-and-a-half hours to Leeds instead of five via car. Fast, like every time we went through a tunnel, our eardrums went through a few G's.

Our reserved seats happened to be facing backwards at a cafe-style table, across from two friendly but silent men. The space between our sets of feet was so small that every time I adjusted, I kicked the man across from me. He was as unmoved as a Beefeater.

Though our seat choice may not have been optimal, had we not reserved seats, we'd have found ourselves sitting on the floor with a group of passengers who got progressively drunker and louder. Instead, we sat among the privileged: adjacent to a set of bleached-blonde girls in Chanel sunglasses, Chanel earrings, D&G white leather belt, tight pants and animal-print heels. When one of their phones rang, it was a gold Razr. (Knowing this, make your own seating choice.)

Once in Leeds, we stumbled with our suitcases to the information desk, where we were directed toward the bus to the airport. For two pounds ten pence apiece (about $4), we rode about 20 minutes to the small airport, where we had to decide how much insurance we were willing to buy to gird the car. In the U.S., our own car insurance, Geico, includes rentals, but Geico doesn't extend beyond American borders. Rats. We mournfully ended up adding about $120 (59 pounds seventy) for collision coverage with a 600 pound (about $1200) deductible. Without the insurance, we'd still be liable for $25,000. Since we'd never before driven from the passenger seat and on the wrong side of the road and I couldn't predict exactly how this experiment would go, I went with the collision insurance. Complete "peace of mind" insurance, with $0 deductible and complete coverage, would have cost $250, almost what we'd paid for a week with the car. That price made me want to give someone a piece of my mind.*

After analyzing six insurance packages and choosing one, we were sent out to the car park (that is, "parking lot" in British) to find our Smart car. We'd actually ordered a VW Golf "or similar." Having only seen the golf cart-sized Smarts in the U.S., we were worried, but it turns out that in Britain, the little Swatch-owned vehicle comes in a larger size. We trudged what seemed like half a mile in light rain, and located our black and gray vehicle. It was shockingly cute with a contrasting hood and body. I actually remembered to get in on the left (passenger) side. Then my husband started it, and I shook.

We slowly backed out of the lot, with me helpfully calling, "Left!" every few seconds. It worked. We headed directly left, and kept left, entirely in the wrong direction from where we wanted to go. We stopped at a video store and found a really nice local bloke who enthusiastically offered to lead us to the highway in his red Ford Puma. I shook a little less.

We did great until we tried to park in the town of Pickering. "Where's 'park?'" my husband asked, searching the gearshift. Thinking fast, I put the car in neutral and pulled the hand brake. Then, over an Italian meal at a little place called Tutti, I sheepishly asked our friendly waiter how he puts his car into "park."

"I put it in neutral and pull the hand brake," he said.

Feeling clever, we continued our very cute drive to the Victorian spa town of Scarborough.

* Two weeks after our return home, we discovered a $112 charge on our credit card statement. We thought it was the insurance charge. Two weeks later, the charge was removed. Another week later, the charge reappeared as $150. We called Europcar for the low-down. It turned out they'd (inexplicably) charged us for gasoline, a charge they would remove. However, the nice man at customer service also asked us why we'd bought insurance. He explained that since we were paying with a major credit card, the credit card gave us insurance. In fact, he said, everyone at Europcar knows that and should never have sold us insurance. "That's just rubbish," he huffed when we told him about the $24,000 liability. He put in a claim to have our insurance charge reversed. When we spoke to the claims desk, however, they denied the reversal.