Turning Around

Occasionally on your journey in a car rental you will find yourself heading in the wrong direction.  Hopefully not the wrong direction on a one way street, but simply the opposite way from where you would like to go, and you are faced with the challenge of getting yourself turned around.  Experienced drivers may be completely comfortable with this, but even so, there are a few driving maneuvers to achieve this which are illegal in some car rental destinations so the following tips on turning around could be helpful for anyone.

Where I am from in Louisivlle, Kentucky, USA, the legal way to turn your car around on a street with two-way traffic is called a turnabout.  Sometimes called the three point turn, this maneuver consists of coming to a complete stop, signaling to other drivers that you will be crossing to the reversing off of the main road, from where you can safely go forward to merge into traffic in the opposite direction.  In a car rental in the United States this is a widely accepted way to turn around, the only problem being there aren't alway side streets.

The video below from expertvillage gives instructions on how to make a three point turn without making use of any driveway.  As you can see this is easiest when the road is nice and wide, but is perhaps too narrow to safely make a U-turn.  In addition, there are many streets where "No U-turn" signs are posted, in which case a skill like the three point turn is a good one to have.

We recently posted a great blog about how to perfect your parallel parking in a car rental.  Hopefully you will find these tips and the many other travel articles on our site to be of some use during your next vacation by car hire.