Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Driving mission accomplished

I had a follow up interview in another city which is situated one hour from where I live, so I had to drive there alone. I called this a mission as I had never driven so far away by myself.

Thanks to mappy.fr, I managed to arrive at my destinations without much problem. I even like the roundabout now as they are good indicator of when to turn right or left. However, I still have problem finding roads. I simply couldn't look for the road name while driving.

This reminds me of the good driving experience when I was in Austin USA. I just love the road system there. You can just give me an address, I can go to mapquest.com and get the direction. I once drove from Austin to Dallas, a journey of 3-4 hours, and my aunt was so fascinated with my sense of direction. Well, back in Malaysia I had no sense of direction, going from on place to another was simply based on experience and memory.

In Austin, there is simply no way you can have no sense of direction. All the highways are named like I35 north, I35 east. So when I know that Dallas is on North of Austin, I simply take I35 North. Then, all the exits are numbered too. If you are at I35 exit 200 and you are going to exit 300, just pay attention when you are at exit 299. Most of the streets started with First Street, Second Street, Third Street....so people just told me I live in a block between 30 and 31 street 3 blocks to Avenue Martin Luther King, and I can find my way easily. If you are at highway and want to exit to 30 streets, it will say I35 exit 233 (Street 30-35).

Now in France I lost my sense of direction again. Highways are named D137, D386 without indication of which direction you are heading. Most of the time you just need to estimate where you need to exit. To find the road name is even worst, there is no numbering like First street Second Street, you have streets in French names and they don't warn you ahead that you are going to pass by which street.

I wish one day Malaysia or France will use the same system like in Austin. They can name the streets by number, at the same time give the streets name. For example, First Street (Jalan Batu Tiga), Second Street (Jalan Tun Razak)...I think most of the US have this system. When I was in New York, I found all the main attractions this way. If I remember correctly, the United Nations is located between 42 and 43 streets on First Avenue.

I sincerely believe that a good road system help build the sense of direction. Hubby has very good sense of direction in the USA and France. However in Malaysia, it took him quite some time to figure out how to go to my place, where was he, whether he was heading North or South.

1 comment:

  1. you are right...hit on the spot!!.US have better system..even they don't use 1 or 2 or 3 street,they still use ABC.I was in Flushing.The first street is Ambrosia,then come Blueberry ,then come Cherry...I keep wondering....where is Rose St...then I remember..I should count as ABC and so on..Msia have lousy road system too but I never been back for a long long time..They told me all road change to one way and highway.I hope I don't have any problem when I'm going there soon..My mom expect me to drive...well let see.

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