US Virgin Islands driving and highways

[mhallack]

The US Virgin Islands is the only place in the US that drives on the LEFT!! Most cars there though have left hand drive vehicles. From the video it looks like that they still use MPH like the mainland, no freeways there either. But several junction markers can be seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLwTdMuhLOE&feature=related

Personally if I ever went there, I'd hire a driver. Likely I'd forget one morning and crash head into another car!! 

[corco]

From what I understand the highest speed limit is 35 or 45 (can't remember) on the islands, so the issues with driving on the wrong side of the road (eg how do you pass a bus) are greatly minimized.

That said, it'd still be really weird

[yanksfan6129]

You'd think that since it was a U.S. territory they might change that, for convenience sake for American visitors.

[realjd]

While I've never been to the US Virgin Islands, I have been to the British ones. Driving on the left wasn't bad. I actually had more of a problem coming back to the US - in the islands, I consciously made a point to keep left when I turned. I got in the habit by the end of my stay. Coming back to the US, I didn't make a point to think "turn to the right", and I caught myself turning to the left a couple of times. Not on an actual road mind you, just into parking lots and such. It was interesting though. The car I had in the BVI was marked only in km, yet the (rare) speed limit sign was in miles. It was also left-hand drive, which made things interesting, especially trying to pass.

I've found that right-hand drive cars are much more intuitive for driving on the left - other than the fact that the turn signal and the windshield wipers are switched. I have to concentrate much more driving on the left in a left-hand car (BVI) than I do in a right-hand car (most recently, the Bahamas).

I don't know why they'd bother switching in the USVI. They're not that big, and I'm sure the cost of switching all of their signs and traffic lights, not to mention having the locals adjust, would be much higher than the extremely minor benefit for American visitors.

[corco]

While I've never been to the US Virgin Islands, I have been to the British ones. Driving on the left wasn't bad. I actually had more of a problem coming back to the US - in the islands, I consciously made a point to keep left when I turned. I got in the habit by the end of my stay. Coming back to the US, I didn't make a point to think "turn to the right", and I caught myself turning to the left a couple of times. Not on an actual road mind you, just into parking lots and such. It was interesting though. The car I had in the BVI was marked only in km, yet the (rare) speed limit sign was in miles. It was also left-hand drive, which made things interesting, especially trying to pass.

Wait- so the cars are even left hand drive on the British Virgin Islands? I would have expected they would get their automobiles off the same boats that send cars to Jamaica and the Bahamas, which would be right hand drive. The reason in the USVI is that even as a US territory, the cars are still subject to the insane US automobile import/safety restrictions and right now a Jeep Wrangler is the only vehicle mass produced in RHD form for the US Market (and there's no reason to start making more of them just for the Virgin Islands). That's surprising that that's the case in the British Virgin Islands too- since the Brits have more relaxed import restrictions- I would have expected the same cars sold in the Bahamas/Jamaica with RHD to be sold on the BVIs.

A quick Google search shows you're right- there are two car dealers on the BVIs and at least one sells US-Spec Chevrolets. I guess maybe because the Brits have more relaxed import restrictions then America, it's cheapest for them just to import US market cars.  I have to wonder why they do that instead of bringing cars from Jamaica or the Bahamas- I'm sure there's a good reason but I have no idea what it is.

[realjd]

^^^
My rental car in the BVI was a Chevy model that's only available in Brazil. That's why my car speedometer was marked in km (and ONLY km - no miles scale at all). Many of the other cars looked like they were from similar places. I'll bet the BVI doesn't have anywhere near the vehicle regulations that the UK does, so they just grab the cheapest cars they can. I saw very, very few RHD cars there.

In the Bahamas, it seemed to vary based on brand. The Chevys, Fords, and other American brands were LHD (including a few models that were obviously imported from Central/South America), while the Toyotas and Hondas were all RHD. My rental car was an old Japanese-spec Corolla.

[realjd]

Just for kicks, here are a few pictures of roads in the BVI. I didn't take any road pictures per se, but these two include a view of the highway along the southern coast of Tortola. I sadly didn't get any pictures of the steep mountainous interior roads.




The highway pictured there starts near the airport on Beef Island, crosses a short bridge to Tortola, then continues through mountainous coastal cliffs to Road Town. In Road Town, it widens out to 4 lanes and has the nation's only traffic light. At the roundabout in the middle of Road Town, the road narrows back to 2 lanes (traffic gets REALLY heavy here sometimes!) and then continues as a mostly flat road right along the water to the west end of the island. There was a white center line painted down the road for some parts but not others. The speed limit was marked near the Airport (with a British-style red circle) and once IIRC in Road Town (with an American-style sign), but it wasn't marked anywhere else on the island and wasn't enforced anyway. Most road signs, on the rare occasion that there was one, were American, with the odd British sign thrown in for fun. One-way travel time from one end of the highway to the other was about 1 hour.

[corco]

Is that a Chevy Optra? You could also get those in Canada and Mexico until a couple years ago (you may still be able to get them in Mexico), so maybe that has something to do with it- but yeah I see a JDM van in that photo you uploaded, so I guess the "get the cheapest cars they can" philosophy makes sense.

[SP Cook]

In the entire Caribbean, there seems to be a divide more based on the status of used imports than left or right hand drive.  Some, mostly less well off, jurisdictions allow importation of used vehicles, and some do not.   In a keep left context, the jurisdictions that allow used importing have a weird mix of LHD US, Canadian, and Latin American cars in private hands, with government and wealthy people having RHD cars (which also lack most emission controls and safety features).  In wealthier jurisdictions, all cars must be new imports and you get a mix of smaller than US standard cars from all over the world, with models familiar to the USA in the hands of the wealthy.

I was in the Bahamas a few years ago and saw a mid-80s Oldsmobile with a Bluefield, WV AAA club and an Appalachian State alumni sticker on it.  Probably from a previous owner, one would think.

[ZoeRPM]

The reason that the traffic is on the left on the islands is that when the US took over from the UK, the donkeys, which were the main form of transport at the time, refused to change sides.

[xcellntbuy]

Just to clarify, the US Virgin Islands are a formerly Danish colony until Denmark sold the Islands to the USA in 1917.

[formulanone]

Most third-world countries are pretty much "run whatcha brung" in terms of importing automobiles.

Nations with large-scale auto manufacturing institute rigid standards to suit their own safety and exporting needs, and those without, don't really see much of a point in creating rules about how far apart the crash bumper must be from the tail-lamps, et cetera.

It's got to be a pain in the arse to drive a wrong-hand-drive car on a 2-lane other-side-of-the-road country, unless you're never in a hurry.