You definitely need a car in the US, and so I found out what driving in New York was like

When I was 17 years old, I passed my driving test (third time) on British roads in my trusty secondhand VW Polo, which I named Alfie. Me and that bright blue machine went powering down country roads and dual carriageways on all sorts of exciting expeditions, leaving a trail of the greatest hits of Rihanna and Death Cab for Cutie in our wake. Alfie was there when I dropped off my boyfriends’ drunk friends after pub nights, when it was my turn to shuttle my friends to and from the shopping centre, and when I went on long nights “to the cinema” with sixth form admirers. He was small, reliable and his 1.2 litre engine and manual gearbox was everything I needed. His CD player was bang up to date for the times as well (I presumed iPods were probably a passing fad.)

I knew a few people when I was 17 who chose to learn to drive in automatics, and I considered them fools. “Not proper drivers” was my stepdad’s summary of the situation and I believed him: what if I was suddenly forced to jump into the driving seat of a car in some kind of nebulous emergency situation and I was too freaked out by the clutch to save the lives of everyone relying on me? It never crossed my mind that, quite a few years later, I might be living in a country when driving a manual is considered oddly niche, the domain of “motor enthusiasts” and the over-80s. And even when I did move to New York City, I laughed at people who kept a car in a place where public transport was abundant and the pavements easy to traverse.

Well, this year I have eaten so many of my own words that they could’ve functioned as my sole sustenance. The coronavirus pandemic has trapped me in the city, while many of my friends have chosen to flee upstate in shiny hired SUVs, US driving licenses in hand. Ten months into the madness of 2020, I decided that I too wanted to hire a deserted Airbnb cabin for the week and “get away from it all” (“Sounds like you’re going to get killed horribly by a serial murderer like in a movie,” said my Geordie mother gleefully when I told her. “It’s the summer house of a sweet old couple who live on a lake, Mum,” I reassured her, to which she immediately replied, “The elderly are the worst! They have nothing to lose.”)

The problem with pretty much anywhere in the US outside of New York City is that you definitely need a car. The Deep South is full of 14-year-olds with pick-up trucks and legal driving licenses, and if you don’t have a car in the suburbs of any state you’re considered to be some sort of sad charity case. You can get the train to the countryside from Manhattan, but once you’re spat out by Amtrak or Metro-North onto a deserted platform in the middle of nowhere with little phone signal and one Uber for the next 100 miles, you’re on your own.

That’s why I ended up hiring a car in Brooklyn a couple of days ago and sweet-talking my friend into sitting in the passenger seat while I tried my hand at driving on the right side of the road. “It’s not that hard,” he told me confidently (he’s a Brit who has been in the US longer than me and drives every other weekend, whether by car or by motorbike.) “It’s about confidence!” We hired a small SUV (I’ve always wanted to drive one) and he went through the basics with me: no more using your left foot in an automatic; left-hand turns are suddenly much more complicated; overtaking is a whole other ballgame; everything else is simpler, considering you’re on a much wider road and Americans are pathologically afraid of roundabouts so they tend not to install them; the speed limit for the entire city is 25mph (yes, really) and the fastest speed limit on a surrounding motorway is 50.

The most enlightening part of the experience was finding out how simple parallel parking is when you’re driving a $40,000 (£31,000) vehicle installed with a rear camera feed which shows you how to park on your dashboard. As someone who’s always lived up to the “woman driver” cliche, I was immensely relieved and impressed by that. What I wasn’t prepared for, however, was the fact that pedestrians and cyclists in Brooklyn have a death wish. Emergency stops on multi-lane roads were not uncommon and nobody else on the road seemed fazed by it. Indeed, they waved it away with a bored look as if it was all part of the usual game. No wonder the speed limit never got past 30.

All in all, I considered the expedition enough of a success to reward myself with a slice of pizza and a chocolate cream pastry puff from an Italian bakery in Rockaway Beach at the end of it. I think I’m fairly well set-up to drive upstate during our trip in October now – or at least I am according to my cavalier friend – but I’ll be hiring the car from outside the confines of NYC.