About David

David Hoult grew up in Hale in the county of Cheshire, England; the eldest of three brothers. Like everyone else there, he learned to drive on a manual transmission car in the back lanes and on the many hills in the area. (His driving instructor would place a matchbox under a rear wheel, and on a 20% incline, challenge him to start off without squashing it.)

His first car was an old Morris Minor, and at the age of twenty, he and a friend drove it to Italy, a far bigger challenge than it would be today, as there were no tunnels or freeways. With only a 948 c.c. engine, the Alps had to be crossed on what now would be considered minor roads. That was his first experience of driving “on the wrong side” – initially in France with the steering wheel on the wrong side too! He still remembers the long line of exasperated Frenchmen behind him as he slowly and nervously left the port of Calais behind.

In Perugia, Italy, the car broke down with a burnt-out engine bearing, and following a repair that was a failure, the pair pulled the spark plug on the offending cylinder, and nursed the car 1,300 miles back home at 30 m.p.h.! David says that after that experience, the only part of the car he didn’t have in pieces at some point was the rear axle, so as to understand it and make sure it worked correctly!

The repaired vehicle (with oversize bearings) went with him to Oxford University where he studied physics. He went on to have a long and successful career in the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), writing numerous papers and a book on the subject. He says he was privileged to live in five different countries, including the U.S.A. and Canada, and visit many more as a result of science. Wherever possible, he rented a vehicle – on three continents and in at least fifteen countries. As a result, he has accrued a wealth of driving experience, but he says his training as a physicist has enabled him to analyze the interaction of car and road in far more instructive ways than usual. For example, of driving on ice he says: “Newton’s Laws of Motion apply to cars too, you know!”

Now living in Winnipeg, Canada with his wife, Hadass Eviatar, and children, he finds driving in N. America far too boring and easy. While on vacation in Ireland (driving, of course), he was chatting with a policeman who bluntly stated that "Americans don’t know how to drive [in Ireland]", (David's addition). Unfortunately, it was not the first time David had heard this statement, and he wasn't really surprised, given the different history and road conventions. However, thinking it over, he then realized that he had the background and the experience to help with the problem, and his book On the Wrong Side! is the result.

He says his next project (apart from scientific consulting) is the completion of a novel started a couple of years ago – a different writing challenge!