You’re from overseas and thinking about driving in Scotland? Worried about single-track roads? Wacky roundabouts? Manual gear-shifts? Here’s what you need to know. Some say we’re trying to put people off on this page but you do need to know where, for example, some of Scotland’s more dangerous roads are.

If you are planning a visit and thinking about driving in Scotland then here are some practical notes on what sort of experience you can expect.

The information here is mostly intended for overseas visitors, though folk from other parts of the British Isles are most welcome, especially if they have never driven Scotland’s roads before.

(I flag up some of Scotland’s scariest roads, further down the page.)

Driving in Scotland – on the LEFT. Don’t forget.

Naturally, driving in Scotland is quite like the experience in England, only slightly slower and less crowded (mostly). Still, I’ve only been driving in Scotland for forty-odd years. What do I know?

First of all, we drive on the left. So does England. So that’s a useful start. Especially if you are from elsewhere in the world and are driving into Scotland from England.

You’ll have had some practice by the time you reach the Border!

By the way, here’s the place to check car rental prices in the UK. They pretty much cover all companies and we get a small commission if you book. No kidding.

Driving the main routes north into Scotland

The A1 – the east side The northern section of the A1 before it reaches the Scottish Border is, in places, single carriageway – it isn’t a dual carriageway or ‘divided highway’ all the way to Scotland.

So, chances are you’ll already be getting a bit frustrated even by the time you reach Berwick-upon-Tweed. (A place which we particularly like, incidentally. Well worth a stop.)

Beyond Berwick – and you could take a break in the vicinity by checking out these Scottish Borders coastal walks – there are still a few single-carriageway sections to go before Dunbar, where it all speeds up and you whizz on towards Edinburgh.

The M6 and M74 – the west side The west coast journey is better – Glasgow-bound, or beyond to Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, it’s dual-carriageway all the way. Hurrah!

Other roads north through the Scottish Border Fairly scenic but potentially terrifying. See ‘the worst driving in Scotland’ below.

Driving north of Edinburgh Take the main A90, if you are heading up the east side through Angus (where you should stop!) towards Aberdeenshire. This is straightforward, except where it goes through Dundee, where (unsurprisingly) traffic lights and roundabouts will slow you down.

Driving north of Glasgow
As above if you’re heading for Perth and beyond. It’s fine. Things start to get interesting if you are keen on seeing Loch Lomond. I never find leaving the city of Glasgow via Dumbarton and heading for Balloch the most relaxing of drives.

So just caa canny (Scots for ‘go easy’) if you’ve just picked up the hire car, will ya?

The road north up the west side of Loch Lomond is the A82. It’s quite well laid out in places, though it ain’t no divided highway. Then further on you are suddenly thrust into driving in 1960s Scotland.

OK, OK, they are improving it…and further north still, at Crianlarich, they now have a bypass at this middle-of-Scotland junction community. Beyond, again, you may find yourself on Rannoch Moor and Glencoe…see further down the page.

According to an edition of ‘Panorama’ on BBC1 in January 2022, (investigating why the UK’s road traffic accident fatality rate had started to rise after 40 years fall) the A82 is statistically Scotland’s most dangerous road. It runs from Glasgow to Inverness (160 miles / 256 km approx.

It’s mentioned in a couple of places below…read on.

The A9 – does it deserve its reputation?

(I get the impression that the A9 is going to have hold-ups, because of the scheduled dualling, for years to come…)

The A9 isn’t one of Scotland’s easiest roads, in spite of the scenery. (Or perhaps because of it?)

These days – and this is a Good Thing – it has average speed cameras – so don’t be tempted to take chances overtaking these heavy trucks.

Mind you, according to recent statistics, these speed cameras haven’t necessarily had a big impact…hmm.

Anyway, I’m not putting you off am I? Just take your time. And those speed cameras have calmed things down a little (maybe) and altered driving behaviour for the better…possibly.

(We know – we used to live in the north – I mean the proper north – and used to drive it a lot. Now the Aberdeen by-pass means we are on it much less often – and are very thankful for that.)

Anyway, on the A9, stop for coffee or lunch at Dunkeld or Pitlochry or any of the Speyside communities. You’ll be fine. Except that…

Fatal accidents on the A9 reached a 20-year high according to media reports in December 2022.

Driving in Scotland: north of Inverness

The ‘rim-road’ all round the far north of Scotland was branded ‘North Coast 500’ a few years ago.

This in turn attracted lots more traffic, a good percentage of which seemed to be interested only in how fast they could drive the sometimes not-terribly-wide roads. (After all, they have Aston Martin as the route sponsor.)

So, the far north road system has became a victim of its own success. Well, that’s tourism marketing for you!

Let’s hope you don’t pick up your rental car in Inverness and sally forth on the roads there for the first time, especially anywhere near peak times in the main summer season.

Roundabout discipline in the Highland Capital is pretty poor, as a rule. Don’t know why. But, again, we drive there a lot and it’s not relaxing.

Anyway, as your map reveals, roads radiate out like the spokes of a wheel from Inverness. If you go north by the Kessock Bridge (the A9 still) you’ll enjoy a few miles of divided highway. You’ll just be relaxing into it when, well, no surprises – it all narrows down again.

That’s it. It’s single carriageway all the way, wherever you go in the north. Remember though, when I say ‘single carriageway’ I do not mean ‘single track’. Oh, you’ll meet the narrowest of Scotland’s roads in a few places – but not as much as you may have been led to believe.

There are a few rules, most of them golden. OK. Think about this.

A car comes the other way and it is clear that you are going to arrive in a passing place just ahead of the oncoming vehicle.

Listen up. If the passing place is on your right, then PLEASE stop opposite it. (Because you are obviously driving on the left. Savvy?)

DO NOT suddenly wrench your vehicle to the right and across the road into the passing place. EVER. It gives me such a fright if I am that oncoming driver.

Obviously if the passing place is on the left, then you drive into it. (Why? Repeat. Because we drive on the left. Don’t tell me you had forgotten that already?) That’s rule 1.

What I’m saying here is that you stop in a passing place – or opposite a passing place if the passing place is on your right. 

The only exception might be, say, when meeting a massive timber lorry that wouldn’t be able to get into the passing place anyway. Then you might have to scuttle off to your right.

Alternatively, they’re probably some environmentally-indifferent petrol-head trying to do that danged North Coast 500-thing in an afternoon. Sheesh.

It is actually, technically, an offence to hold up a vehicle behind you.

In any case the fast-moving vehicle may be a local, though these days in the Scottish Highlands it’s more likely to be:

A) someone from Yorkshire now living in the area or B) a tradesman from Yorkshire doing up the old croft-house the Yorkshire couple have just bought.

Finally, remember that it was near Durness in the far north-west that the late John Lennon with young family and Yoko Ono drove into a ditch in July 1969.

He lost control of his Austin Maxi on the narrow road, when he encountered a foreign vehicle coming towards him. He was, apparently, a rotten driver anyway. They all ended up in Golspie Hospital.

This was years and years before NC500 of course…often driven, some say, by drivers about as bad as John Lennon…

Wait though, there’s one more rule, though it’s really more of a convention. Remember to give a cheery wave – both if you are the passing-place-ee or the passing-place-er.

You may swear and name-call a little in front of the children if the other driver does not wave back.

But most people are good at waving a thank-you. You might also meet a bus on a narrow bridge too – but just take it nice and slow!

Anyway, one more thing…please, not too fast, especially on the blind bends on the road to Ardnamurchan, or the stretch between Inverkirkaig and Lochinver, or…well, you’ll know it when you drive it.

Or anywhere near Hermiston Gait on the western outskirts of the city. Oh, and anywhere on the City Bypass.

Actually, it’s easier just to say, unless you enjoy queues, get clear of the capital by, say, 3pm at the latest.

Ditto Glasgow. Dundee at rush hour, along the A90 with all those roundabouts, can be tedious.

Aberdeen, say, northbound over the Bridge of Don is a complete pain, though it has to be said that if you are driving north out of Aberdeen at this hour of the day then, as a visitor, you’ve given yourself a very odd itinerary.

What did you find to do in Aberdeen all day? Southbound it’s just as bad.

Matters have been improved though, by the opening of the city’s Western Peripheral Route – the Aberdeen bypass. (We love it!)

So, try to avoid all of Scotland’s cities in the rush hour. Simple as that. But then my wife says I have no patience.

And Inverness Of The Near-Miss Roundabouts has already been mentioned. Horrid.

Bus lanes in Scotland’s cities Just a wee reminder about bus lanes. Cameras are usually in operation so be very careful!

How to recognise a bus lane? You’re new around here? Look for solid white lines, blue information notices – and especially observe the hours in which the lanes are buses-only.

Small wonder motorists get confused and impatient. Sometimes these bus lanes can be missed and local authorities will show no mercy if you are caught on camera.

In 2017, for instance, Scotland’s councils issued £7,633,280 worth of fines, of which more than £6.5 million was from Glasgow alone. (In fact, it is said that one single bus lane – in Nelson Mandela Place – brought in more than £1 million!)

The worst driving in Scotland

I have lived in quite a few parts of Scotland. I used to think that the standard of driving on rural roads in Aberdeenshire and Moray was the worst. Sometimes I still do.

But at least it had the saving grace that these roads were very lightly trafficked so the chance-taking driver often got away with it. I then lived on the edge of the Scottish Borders.

I now tentatively flag up that part of the south of Scotland as the home of the scariest drivers.

(Actually, no, wait, even as I write this, I’m thinking it’s no worse than Aberdeenshire and Moray!)

The rural roads of the Scottish Borders twist and turn in a way that demand concentration. There are quite substantial towns. There is quite a bit of slow-moving agricultural traffic.

The area is quite near Edinburgh so there is commuting traffic as well.

In short, you’ve got a lot of folk going from A to B, sometimes in a hurry. Naturally, they want to go by the shortest route. In the mind of a Borderer then, this means cutting corners wherever possible, as it makes the route shorter. Even when the corner is blind.

It isn’t relaxing for the visitors. However, they should keep in mind the local phrase ‘a day out of Hawick is a day wasted’.

This means that some of the people suddenly encountered drifting on to the wrong side of the road on a Borders bend are simply locals in a hurry to get back to Hawick.

Everyone is going at different speeds for different reasons. Woo-hoo, scene set for scary overtaking.

Drivers on the wrong side of the road.

As for driving on the Isle of Skye itself, it seems that visitors accustomed to driving on the right get so enraptured(?) by the scenery that they, umm, occasionally forget we drive on the LEFT.

Sorry to be banging on about this again but I once had a scary moment in Aberdeenshire with an oncoming overseas-registered 4 x 4 on the wrong side of the road.

Consequently, I am entirely in sympathy with the young Skye resident who in December 2018 had a head-on collision with a visitor driving on the WRONG side of the road and has now started a campaign for more ‘drive on the left’ reminders on Skye.)

In fact, take a look at this BBC News report about drivers in Scotland – overseas visitors in hire cars? – on the wrong side of the road.

Please. Go ahead. Watch it. It’s quite an unsettling little clip .

Take care also on the main A82 (again – inevitably) through the Great Glen, linking Inverness and Fort William.

Exactly the same reasons as above but this road has even fewer places where overtaking is possible. (It’s part of my faint aversion to the Great Glen, alluded to on other pages.)

Also, the A75 has a bad reputation. This east-west connection down in the south of Scotland carries traffic to Ireland as well.

Still, nobody much goes to Galloway comparatively speaking – though there is a big page on this charming part of Scotland on that link.

Besides, there are lots of alternate routes if pootling east to west.

In conclusion, I’ve thought about it but am not going to apologize for potentially scaring the bejaisus out of you if you were in two minds about driving here.

Ach, it’s fine if you promise to keep your eyes on the road – preferably the left side – and not stare out at the scenery too much.

And a wee mention of roundabouts. Apparently, we’re very fond of them. Just give way to traffic already on the roundabout coming in from your right. No exceptions.

Finally: roundabouts with traffic lights on them. Nope, no idea why they exist. But watch out for ’em.

Take a look here at some more facts about Scotland. Or perhaps, you are thinking of driving to the Isle of Skye.

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