Bertie (our motorhome) is an Adria i707SL, A-class based on a Renault Master chassis but as we found out when we tried to buy new wing mirror covers the front isn’t Renault master! The total weight of the van with all contents (incl people ) is 3950kg. It is 7.2 m long, 2.3 m wide and 3.4m tall. It is LHD (left hand drive) given that we wanted to drive around Europe. We found this hard in the UK as the vision was dreadful on roundabouts, but no issues in France (so far).
We adapted to the LHD quickly, helped by having driven LHD rental cars on our last holiday.
I find the length is no issue at all, but the width takes a lot of adjusting to. Passing lorries on narrow roads is still something that makes me cringe, in fact only yesterday I got the pavement while passing a wide van. It’s a tall vehicle so it is impacted by the wind and at 90 kph (our top speed limit) that is not nice. Overtaking lorries can also result in creating a wobble in your line as you’re hit by their draught. We are getting much better at manoeuvring Bertie, we still tend to take this slowly, as I commented to John as I reversed in a side road, “I’m doing this the speed of a learner, I hope nothing comes down”
The other thing to get used to is the light steering, it is very light compared to any car I have driven. And on any road with a camber you feel like the van is going to tip over, so initially you take roundabouts very slowly. Of course not only do we have to deal with the driving we also have to know the laws of the country we are in. What speed can we go? What speed stickers do we need on the van (this took a lot of working out)? What documents? What do we need to carry? spare glasses? warning triangles? etc, what does the blue car sign mean, what does the no lorry sign cover? Etc.
I keep getting asked to I enjoy driving Bertie, I’m sorry to say I find driving one of those things you do, like brushing your teeth, something you do for a reason that you find neither pleasant nor unpleasant, sorry to you drivers of the world.