Driving to London, am i unnecessarily anxious ?

[moon man]

As title i am driving to South Norwood from Cornwall , the last time i got a little intimidated with the whole experience , thinking tomorrow a better option than today due to Crystal palace game ? will i survive this journey , how straightforward is it and when a good time to set off ?
(5 hours apparently) my youngest has bought a house there and its got lots of parking so i can hopefully leave it and switch to public transport once there ,especially as mine isn't ulez friendly

 

[moon man]

Piece of **** with decent sat nav, but if you are a nervy driver not much is going to suddenly cure that.

Are you worried about the whole journey or specifically driving in London? South Norwood is nowhere near central London and looks like it's easy from the M25 down the A232.

I find driving in Cornwall more difficult because of all the tiny country roads. If you can deal with those you can deal with most things.

yes more the London bit but i ended up going through Chelsea last time i visited (not this house ) and just wasn't comfortable with it, i know what you mean about the roads here though

 

[moon man]

Yeah that is the one thing that's different with London, you have to be a bit more assertive when pulling out, changing lanes etc as people are more selfish and won't give you an inch.

i do tend to avoid confrontation when driving, even pulling over when tailgated, guessing i will get nowhere fast if i don't change that then

 

[moon man]

Driving to and in to London, up until the circular roads is easy as pie but beyond that, park up and use public transport. I would never drive in central London ever, waste of time, frustrating, and costly. It's not worth the stress.

yep planning to park up then do that in-between giving some diy help with the new house

 

[moon man]

If your that worried about driving why don't you take a train from Newkey to Paddington then get the underground to Norwood Junction?

Taking a Banana plant that's about 5 ft and a large copper planter ect so need the Roomster then going up to Oxfordshire next friday

 

[moon man]

Just having a vegan sausage roll here

 

[moon man]

Just having a vegan sausage roll

 

[moon man]

Made it but iit was worse than I thought, had some red light but no sign of where to stop , traffic behind doing the horn thing , then I maybe briefly hit a bus lane but it's like I had no choice, yep will be train next time now I've dropped her stuff off.
I will maybe try and get a Google street map shot of the weird red light at some point,

 

[moon man]

Yeah this is my normal congestion,.local hunt seems to train at my commute time

 

[moon man]

No its normal to feel anxious about something you're not familiar with especially as london has a certain uh, reputation for terrible driving. Unless I know exactly where I'm going and theres a good parking spot at the end I usually just take the train and tube/taxi its less hassle.

Yeah , leaving the car in my daughter's driveway until Friday it's only a few mins to station and 12 mins to London bridge