is easy enough, though he will be driving lots slower. (usually the nice policeman will let you off with a warning for minor stuff but not always. You might get a ticket... kept mine for ages cos he told me to take care of it).

If hiring a car watch out for the scams at the airport. They usually try to get you to take an upgrade plus take care what insurance you sign up for. CDW is required but they normally try the personal cover too.
It can be a shock just how many extras you have to pay for a hire car out of the airport.

 

I'm in San Francisco next week and have hired a convertible Chrysler Sebring.

Hope it doesn't disappoint me and is as soft and appallingly bad to drive as I expect it to be

 

Be careful with that Sebring... the last one I had in SF had crap brakes!!!

Simon (used to live in SF).

 

BTW It took me 8 minutes to get a CA drivers license... did 2 rights, one left, and pulled over, got told I'd passed and went back to the test station.

I did of course have to do a written multi choice test, got all but 1 right!

Simon.

 

Cheers all, info has been passed on

 

A mate is off to Florida next week, to be able to drive over there does he need anything on top of his normal driving license?

 

Not sure about Florida, but drove in California a couple of years ago. All I needed was my passport and driving licence.

Nearly had a heart attack at the first juntion I came to when I though the car in front was cutting across oncoming traffic .

I found that driving the in the US was a lot less frenzied than the UK...

[This message has been edited by Nimbus (edited 18 June 2001).]

 

Nah, as long as he's got his driving license he'll be OK.

Dave

 

Yep that's all he needs, just remember that in the US you can turn right at red traffic lights.

 

If he has the new style licence make sure he takes both parts.

You can't do right on red at all junctions, look out for signs.

 

Don't forget to check they've supplied a Colt .45 as per standard spec. If there isn't one in the glovebox demand a spare
Chuck

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Marc W:
<B>I'm in San Francisco next week and have hired a convertible Chrysler Sebring.

Hope it doesn't disappoint me and is as soft and appallingly bad to drive as I expect it to be [/quote]

I hired one in LA a while back

It was far softer and far more appallingly bad than my very low expectations

shocking really

 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Robertio:
<B>A mate is off to Florida next week, to be able to drive over there does he need anything on top of his normal driving license?[/quote]


In most states he must be over 25 to hire a car.

 

If you are in the Orlando (Disney) area, watch out for multi-occupancy lanes (outside needs three or more inthe car) and try not to speed 'cos "tourists" are easy meat (and there were double-fines in roadworks last year)!

mb

 

speeding is good especially at the lights...Almost got car jacked so i put the pedal to the metal! Tourists are easy meat because of obvious car rental plates. This was quite a few years ago though, i think things have changed now.
Not to put you off or anything...

 

Rent a car with Alamo. They provide all cars with no Car Rental markings as standatd because of the threat of car jacking and the like.

Other than that, take both your counter parts to your licence and also bring with you your passport and a credit card for the excess of around $400.00 depending on car group, the larger the car, the larger the excess, not the faster the car etc etc, as you would think. Funny lot them americans.

Now, if you rent "locally" which I strongly advise not to do! (book with a company in the UK and get a fully inclusive pre-paid rate, with nothing more to pay) then make sure you do not sign for any daft insurance schemes on your credit card etc etc...as you will find that when you return you were billed $30.00 a day for environmental greenpeace protection program (or some ****) and you will be rather pi$$ed off! Take with you, firmly in your knowledge bank that ALL American car hire firms (Alamo, Dollar, Budget U.S.A, Hertz, Thrifty) pay their staff at the counters on up-selling the cars and making a mint out of extra insurance cover. You will normally get $1,000,000 cover for personal liabilty insurance cover for third parties, and the same for yourself...remember that pay outs for insurance claims can get to $250,000 for a broken toe, and that the health care is all paid for by insurance companies. Don't accept any more cover thats offered, the ammount your given is plenty.

Hope this helps, if you have any further concerns, let me know...I know a bit about how this works

Regards
Ronnie

 

Two points from my hire experience in March:

1. Almost no-one will hire to you if you don't have a credit card. I have a Visa Debit card, they wouldn't touch me, despite the fact that there was enough money there to buy the bloody car. Wouldn't accept a cash deposit either. Odd how they won't accept real money but insist on high-risk stuff? The real irony is that I haven't got a credit card as I've always had enough money to buy what I want (or should that be, I've only ever bought what I can afford?)

2. Insurance: I signed up to something and only afterwards realised that it said effectively "This insurance is only to cover the hired vehicle, and the driver agrees to provide his own third party insurance." Oddly enough, my English policy didn't cover me. So I was driving around in the lawsuit capital of the world, LHD, first time ever in an automatic, with no insurance . As in the UK, this is totally illegal. Basically, they wanted to make the sale, but said they didn't sell insurance products.

Enjoy - and make pulling-down gestures at truckers to get them to blow their air horns, my 12-yr-old got 60 in three days, kept him occupied over many miles of long trip!!

BJH

 

The points listed above are good: make sure you prebook over here and pre-pay for all the options you need (CDW, child seats, car upgrade) etc. Otherwise you WILL get stung for them over there. They will try to get you to upgrade/take out extras (its very tempting when they offer you the nice convertable....)

Remeber that the boot will probably not be quite as big as a similar sized car over here - if you have a family then you'll want an 'intermediate' sized car minimum (unless you travel really light!)

I've just come back from Orlando - watch out for the 4 way stops Didn't seem to have any speeding problems but did manage to turn up at an unmanned toll booth without any change - had to drive through without paying as there was nothing else I could do: keep plenty of quarters in the car!

Oh and watch out for the rain and lightning at the moment - at times it makes conditions impossible to drive in (though it doesn't seem to stop the Mack trucks/Pickups from doing 80mph in whatever lane they choose)

 

The lucky sod has now departed, git

Whether he will pay any attention to the advice given is open to debate, but thanks all