日本文が後ろに続きます。
I revisited the UK in September as my first visit there in February was very nice. This time I went to Folkestone, Kent, where it was taken place by the musical Half A Sixpence I watched at Kokugakuin Tochigi High School, via Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Rye, and New Romney.
２月に初めてイギリスに行ってみたのがすごくよかったので、９月にもう一度イギリスに行ってきました。今回は國學院栃木高校の文化祭で観たミュージカル「Half A Sixpence」の舞台になったケント州のフォークストンへ、ブライトン、タンブリッジウェルズ、ヘイスティングス、ライ、ニューロムニー経由で行ってきました。
日本語のほうはフォートラベルに旅行記を転載しました。以下は英語だけです。
I flew Aeroflot to Moscow, where I changed the plane to London. At Heathrow Airport, I had the usual strict inspection at the immigration counter. Being asked why I was going to Folkestone, I answered the plain truth that I had been impressed by Half A Sixpence I had watched several weeks before and it had encouraged me to visit there. I told the cab driver who took me to the hotel from the airport the same thing, and he said, “Oh really. Enjoy your trip to Folkestone.”
I hired a car to get to Folkestone as I wanted to try to drive in the UK just once. The rental car store offered me a brand-new Audi A1 with a sat nav, a manual gearbox, and cruise control. It was so eco-conscious a car that it had a clean diesel engine and such a system that, if you change the gear to the neutral position and step off the clutch pedal, the engine stopped until you step on it again.
Driving on the street in the UK was really easy. I got accustomed to the manoeuvres of the car very soon as they were almost the same as those of the VW Polo I own in Japan. Other drivers had good manners and drove more briskly than some Japanese car drivers who drive too sluggishly. I found out that the important thing to drive in the UK smoothly was to be always aware of the speed limit and right-of-way. Every road has an explicit speed limit. For roads within a town, the speed limit is 30mph. If you drive away from the town, you will see an end-speed-limit sign, and then you can speed up to 60 mph (or 70 mph for the road with multiple lanes). When you are approaching a town, you will see a 50 mph speed-limit sign and a marking, and then you have to reduce speed to 50 mph. When you are driving closer to the town centre, the speed limit will be 40 mph and finally 30 mph. I saw that almost all the cars followed the speed limit, and the driver drove at 60 mph where allowed. It was rare to see such a driver that drove so dilatorily that he made a long queue behind him, as is often seen on the road of Japan.
It is clearly defined in every situation if you have the right-of-way or not. At a roundabout, cars driving along the circle have the right-of-way, and incoming cars have to give way to them. If you see an inverted triangle road marking, you have to give way to the traffic on the road ahead. If you are driving too narrow a road ahead to go by each other, a road sign explicitly shows which has the right-of-way, you, or an oncoming car.
Roads, road signs, and road markings in the UK are designed logically, concisely, and minimally. They are easy to understand. I think that Japan, though cars and roads are ostensibly developed, will need more than dozens of years to catch up with the UK in road administration.
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