Island driving

Does this picture look weird to you?

It feels normal to me, which is why you might not want to get in the car while I am driving back in America, at least for the first few weeks.

After a year and a half I've fairly mastered driving on the left side of the road. It feels normal for a bus to pass me on the right. I look right first, then left, when pulling out of the parking lot. I use my left hand to shift the car into gear and my right hand to turn the headlights on.

Still, driving here is a challenge. Besides all of the backwards things to get used to, road rules are different (nonexistent?) on the island. If I was smarter I would create a video game simulating the island driving experience.

In this game you would get points every time you successfully pass oncoming traffic on a narrow, winding two-lane road while also dodging a stray dog and a small child walking.

In addition, there will be cars parked randomly on this two-lane road making it a narrow one lane at various points. Some of the oncoming traffic will be large work trucks or even an occasional tractor. This will make passing especially tight.

And somewhere along the way there will be a reggae bus stopped to pick up or drop off passengers. If you make it around the reggae bus you get points, but when he passes you in a few miles zooming at 80 miles an hour on this narrow little road, you lose points.

And if you come across a small car with an "L" on the back, you've encountered a "learner" driver who is being taught by a driving instructor. What they call "learning to drive" here looks more like "learning to be a huge nuisance and danger to other drivers."

The learner will probably do a seven-point turn in the middle of this narrow road, and you will have to either wait 12 minutes for him to complete the turn or earn points if you can sneak by him somewhere around the third point of his turn.

Then you will come across an enormous hill which seems to be at a 90 degree angle from the earth. You get points if your two-decades-old jalopy can make it up this hill without a) falling off into the ocean or b) dying forever on the side of a mountain.

If you can make it this far in the game, the next level will be to drive in St. George's, the capital city of Grenada. The roads have seemingly not been updated since the French were here in the 18th century and they look to be more appropriate for a golf cart (horse?) then a car.

If you can navigate through some tiny spaces (again, two-lanes down to one lane because there is no logic or law about parking) you are also challenged to keep your tire out of a two-foot gutter sloping off the side of the road.

And there are many more people in the St. George's challenge. In fact, the major points here come from not running any of them over as they walk along the side of the very narrow road or randomly cross at various intervals.

Next level, night-time driving. All the roads are dark with only a very few random street lights, so the road that seemed extremely narrow and winding during the day is now a terrifying black, inky path snaking around the island's edge.

Buses will pass at frightening speeds while you inch forward only able to see a few feet ahead of you in the beam of your headlights. Oncoming traffic, having the same difficulty seeing, will use their brights with no regard to blinding you.

Points here if you just stay on the road and don't plunge off a cliff into the ocean. Extra bonus points if you manage to avoid - wait, what's that? a person on a bike? a motorcycle? no, a cow! - the cow that a farmer has let loose to graze overnight which is now standing directly in your path.

To keep things interesting, there will be large potholes on every road that you will need to avoid and often a road will be unpaved and very bumpy.

Also, part of the game will be to find a new place - maybe a business or a friends house - but there will be no street signs and directions will be vague: pass a goat tied to a fence then turn right at the rum shack. Major points if you find your intended destination without back tracking or stopping for additional directions.

One more challenge of the game will be to determine your car's gas mileage and price per gallon in U.S. dollars. Your odometer will be set in kilometers, the gas station will sell gas by the liter and you will pay for the gas in Eastern Caribbean dollars. So there's a little word problem to earn some bonus points along the way.

So far, in my Grenada driving game I have racked up quite a few points. I can even sing along to the radio, talk on my cell phone (briefly) and take quick glances at Liam in the back seat while doing some of the above.

I've lost some points for bumping into brush, trees or concrete barriers while trying to turn around in a tight space; bottoming out while trying to come down from one of those 90 degree driveways; hitting some potholes especially hard and having to fix two flat tires (nails each time). And I haven't even attempted the price-per-gallon word problem.

If you are a game developer interested in pursuing my game idea, call me. Otherwise, watch out America, I'm coming back with some unique driving skills that might not help me on the right side of the road.