Driving in US

Driving and moving around is US is different from that of our contry. You cannot walk from one place to another (of course major metro’s and cities, walking in the busy areas are common. If you walk around in Newyork city, it reminds you of Bombay ;-) ). For the small cities, the hotels will be present mostly near a free way exit. You might have to travel to the next exit to get food or sometimes you will get at the same exit. So a car is required for all travel purpose. If you don’t have a license handy, you can always rely on cabs which can be booked over the phone. They normally takes 20 -40 mins to show up after your booking.

Rental Cars

If you want to book a rental car, you need a credit card. Some of the car rentals are www.hertz.com; www.enterprisecar.com; www.nationalcar.com;. The average rent will be around 20-30 USD per day for a small car like Toyota Corolla which does not include the Insurance. Car Insurance needs to be bought separately and I strongly advise you to buy it for first few days at least. I will write a separate blog on various insurances that you can buy for car rental. The rental cars will have automatic gear shift. So you don’t have to worry about the gear shifts. The next major difference. The cars are all left hand drive. If you have never driven in US, I would strongly advise you NOT to drive in US. You have to follow rules and rules are much different in US, major being there are rules for freeways.

Freeways

Freeways are like highways in India. I should be crazy to do such a comparison. Well, the point that I want to make is that the free ways normally connect cities, sometimes states and sometimes multiple states. I-75 goes all the way from Michigan to Florida, roughly 700 miles. Now let me tell the major rules. You are not supposed to stop your car on a freeway, unless it’s an emergency. In case of emergency, you should pull your car to the right side (if present, some places it will be left side) shoulder and never stop on the road. If you want to stop the car for taking rest, you should take the car through the nearest exit and stop at a safe place like Gas Station, Eat outs etc. Yes, there will nothing on the freeways; you should take the exit roads to fill gas, to eat out, to take rest and to stop the vehicle for driver changing and for anything that involves stopping the car. Every exit will have a number like Exit 169. Before the exit, all the facilities available at the exit will be posted on the freeways. Normally, for every exit, there will be an adjacent entry where you can get back to the freeway. Some places it may not be the case and it will be mentioned at the exit. So the general flow is, take an exit, do whatever you want and then join back the freeway at the entry.

There are speed limits posted on the road and it should be followed. You will be ticketed by the cops if you exceed the speed limit and sometimes if you don’t maintain the minimum speed limit. There are some rules specific to states and you should read the rules before travelling in that state. You will be ticketed by the cops if you don’t follow rules, whether you are aware or not. The freeways will have multiple lanes and shifting between the lanes should be done carefully. So please do read the rules, it’s important and it’s very much different from driving in our country.