Post brexit LHD switch.

James Bond Junior

If a hard brexit were to happen would it be in our favour to switch to LHD like the rest of Europe. I know it would probably be chaos and the whole road network would need reconfiguration but it could it be a short term pain in place of a long tern gain?

EDit

What is the long term gain?

ba_barabus

It would make sense for trucks to switch first and cars later

_Brian

Why would we ensure such a huge upheaval for nonreal benefit ?

James Bond Junior

I was thinking long term gain from a car importation point of view. Exports from the continent as well as cheaper cars as LHD are cheaper to make.

James Bond Junior

James Bond Junior wrote: »

If a hard brexit were to happen would it be in our favour to switch to LHD like the rest of Europe. I know it would probably be chaos and the whole road network would need reconfiguration but it could it be a short term pain in place of a long tern gain?

Whatever about a border we aren't going to putting up a wall with the North.
We won't be the only LHD country after Brexit - the other island countries Malta and Cyprus will still be LHD.

First Up

James Bond Junior wrote:

I was thinking long term gain from a car importation point of view. Exports from the continent as well as cheaper cars as LHD are cheaper to make.

Asia drives on the left. It suits Japanese car makers for us to stay that way.

The high horse brigade

Has a country ever changed? I mean the roads are all designed for right hand drive it would be a mammoth task probably not worth considering

aaakev

Look at how many people can barely drive on the left as it is, imagine the carnage if we switched! What about all the rhd cars on the road now, what'll happen them? It'll never happen

Water John

Sweden 1967 I think.
Not going to happen.

selectamatic

2019 will be the revival of the glory days of jap imports.

colm_mcm

First Up wrote: »

Asia drives on the left. It suits Japanese car makers for us to stay that way.

Not really, most Japanese manufacturers build cars for Europe in Europe.

bazz26

Not going to happen in our life time anyway imo. The cost would be huge and outway any benefits. We cannot even manage the building of a Children's hospital on time or on budget as it is. Also what would happen to all the RHD cars here? Would people be forced to part with them for LHD cars? How do you offload that many RHD cars as the Brits won't want them, they have enough of their own. The roads would be just mental with a mix of LHD and RHD cars being driven on the left. What about the existing road network, all those slip roads on motorways/dcs would have to be reengineered.

Then you have the border issue with NI, you would certainly have a hard border with us and them irrespective of Brexit, driving on opposite sides. Just cannot see what benefits from switching to LHD that would outweigh any of that stuff to be honest.

colm_mcm

Insurance loading for RHD cars too!

ayux4rj6zql2ph

Samoa did the reverse in 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8243110.stm

MrCostington

ba_barabus wrote: »

It would make sense for trucks to switch first and cars later

I don't think this post got the credit it deserves:)

BA, I tip my hat to you!!!

Anyone here remember when the Quays on the Liffey were reversed?


https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0803/895025-dublin-traffic-reverses/

James Bond Junior

I know it is a bit mad alright but it is a justifiable question of Brexit does happen as we will be pushed more into the European model in a lot of ways. I can forsee, hard brexit withstanding, a lot of european food brands on our shelves in place of the traditional British brands like McVities, robinsons, weetabix and so on.

porsche boy

James Bond Junior wrote:

I know it is a bit mad alright but it is a justifiable question of Brexit does happen as we will be pushed more into the European model in a lot of ways. I can forsee, hard brexit withstanding, a lot of european food brands on our shelves in place of the traditional British brands like McVities, robinsons, weetabix and so on.

Just like Aldi & Lidl so.... they have been doing great for years with their copyright infringing brands.

SteM

James Bond Junior wrote: »

If a hard brexit were to happen would it be in our favour to switch to LHD like the rest of Europe. I know it would probably be chaos and the whole road network would need reconfiguration but it could it be a short term pain in place of a long tern gain?

Long term pain for little gain imo.

tedpan

bazz26 wrote:

Not going to happen in our life time anyway imo. The cost would be huge and outway any benefits. We cannot even manage the building of a Children's hospital on time or on budget as it is. Also what would happen to all the RHD cars here? Would people be forced to part with them for LHD cars? How do you offload that many RHD cars as the Brits won't want them, they have enough of their own. The roads would be just mental with a mix of LHD and RHD cars being driven on the left. What about the existing road network, all those slip roads on motorways/dcs would have to be reengineered.

Surely they'll be flying cars soon? Just watched Back to the Future and they had them 3 years ago..

bazz26

True that, even Biff became President.

ShadowHearth

All crap aside. Would it make cars cheaper? Surely manufacturers would not need to do special RHD cars and stream line manufacturing?

It was easy for those countries to switch when roads werent so busy. Right now I bet it would be a nightmare. I learned to drive in eastern europe and it took a while to switch driving in Ireland. Its possible, but I can only imagine chaos when all country needs to switch.
Elder drivers are crap at driving and its not news. It will take just a few of them not to get a memo and we will be in Mad max universe very damn fast.

bazz26

Ireland has some of the lowest pre tax car prices in Europe so if LHD models were somehow cheaper to sell here it would just give more scope for higher taxes on them.

First Up

colm_mcm wrote:

Not really, most Japanese manufacturers build cars for Europe in Europe.

True but they have complex cross border supply chains that depend on Single Market ease of movement. If the UK is mad enough to crash out, much of that will be impossible and there may be tarrifs to deal with too. Making RHD cars in Europe for the UK (and Irish) market might be more trouble than its worth.

lawred2

EDit wrote: »

What is the long term gain?

access to the primary market for vehicles in the EU

Ireland is going to be the largest market for right hand drive in the EU post Brexit. And Ireland is not a big market. So we can expect to pay well over the odds..

grogi

lawred2 wrote: »

access to the primary market for vehicles in the EU

Ireland is going to be the largest market for right hand drive in the EU post Brexit. And Ireland is not a big market. So we can expect to pay well over the odds..

We should just start buying cars with central drivers position. Problem solved

Del2005

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I was thinking long term gain from a car importation point of view. Exports from the continent as well as cheaper cars as LHD are cheaper to make.

Our cars are cheaper 2nd hand so if we did switch to LHD then our vehicles would be being exported to the continent not the other way, our big engined cars are already going that way.

magentis

grogi wrote: »

We should just start buying cars with central drivers position. Problem solved

Yeah,like a fiat multipla with the wheel in the middle.

grogi

Del2005 wrote: »

Our cars are cheaper 2nd hand so if we did switch to LHD then our vehicles would be being exported to the continent not the other way, our big engined cars are already going that way.

Our cars are cheaper only because of the price pressure from UK abs ridiculous insurance issues.

Get rid of cheap cars from UK, ours get more expensive over night

For Forks Sake

grogi wrote: »

We should just start buying cars with central drivers position. Problem solved

McLaren F1s for all

For Forks Sake

Anaya Straight Anger wrote: »

Samoa did the reverse in 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8243110.stm

A two-day holiday was declared to ease traffic as people got used to the new rules. A three-day ban on alcohol sales was also introduced to deter accidents.

There'd be a f*cking mutiny here at that suggestion

Also, for comparison, the land area of Samoa is smaller than County Clare.

James Bond Junior

For Forks Sake wrote: »

There'd be a f*cking mutiny here at that suggestion

Also, for comparison, the land area of Samoa is smaller than County Clare.

Even more likely to crash into each other with less space so.

Del2005

grogi wrote: »

Our cars are cheaper only because of the price pressure from UK abs ridiculous insurance issues.

Get rid of cheap cars from UK, ours get more expensive over night

Our cars are cheap because people buy the little bit of plastic which tells the cars age rather than the condition of the car. Removing UK imports won't make people buy old cars. Even if our cars do get more expensive they will still be cheaper than the continent.

gooch2k9

Trabants for all!

And cheap tax!

shanec1928

The high horse brigade wrote: »

Has a country ever changed? I mean the roads are all designed for right hand drive it would be a mammoth task probably not worth considering

Myanmar\Burma did after the Brits left

Oops!

selectamatic wrote: »

2019 will be the revival of the glory days of jap imports.

I look forward to it. My stockpile of flares and reversible screwdrivers is running low.

Cee-Jay-Cee

James Bond Junior wrote: »

If a hard brexit were to happen would it be in our favour to switch to LHD like the rest of Europe. I know it would probably be chaos and the whole road network would need reconfiguration but it could it be a short term pain in place of a long tern gain?

Yeah because if the UK leave with no deal and as a direct result Ireland has a **** load of problems to contend with, then yes switching to driving on the right is just what we need to take our minds of the plethora of problems to be overcome.

Switching will never happen here. The time to change passed 50 years ago. We are always going to be RHD until such time as roads are no longer needed.

Marcusm

James Bond Junior wrote: »

If a hard brexit were to happen would it be in our favour to switch to LHD like the rest of Europe. I know it would probably be chaos and the whole road network would need reconfiguration but it could it be a short term pain in place of a long tern gain?

There are few places on Earth where cars cross a border and change from driving on the left to driving on the right. Hong Kong-Shenzhen border is one of them and it’s a complex multilevel interchange. How long will it take to build 300 of them on the border? It’s simply not an option.

Teddy Daniels

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I know it is a bit mad alright but it is a justifiable question of Brexit does happen as we will be pushed more into the European model in a lot of ways. I can forsee, hard brexit withstanding, a lot of european food brands on our shelves in place of the traditional British brands like McVities, robinsons, weetabix and so on.

withouthebrits?

Leonard Hofstadter

Weetabix is British, actually lots of things we eat and drink are made in the UK. Even Lyons tea is made over there (although being a Cork man I only drink Barry's :pac:). That said, we'd be nowhere near as screwed as they would be for basics like food, we are a net exporter, they are a net importer and can't feed themselves.

Atlantic Dawn

There's so much stuff that will be resticted if it happens, I'd bet my car in the driveway that either they will vote again and they will stay or they will just repeal article 50.

Del2005

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

There's so much stuff that will be resticted if it happens, I'd bet my car in the driveway that either they will vote again and they will stay or they will just repeal article 50.

If they had functioning political parties that might happen. The Tories are tearing themselves apart over Brexit, Labour are asleep and the Shinner's won't take their seats to save the day out of a silly principle so they are going to crash out and then everyone is fecked. The only ones happy are the DUP who stay "British" even though they can never be British.

Atlantic Dawn

Del2005 wrote: »

If they had functioning political parties that might happen. The Tories are tearing themselves apart over Brexit, Labour are asleep and the Shinner's won't take their seats to save the day out of a silly principle so they are going to crash out and then everyone is fecked. The only ones happy are the DUP who stay "British" even though they can never be British.

The majority of people who voted no did so for migration, the dodgy people crossing the English channel are still going to be crossing the channel post Brexit if it goes through.

Hellrazer

Deleted User wrote: »

Whatever about a border we aren't going to putting up a wall with the North.
We won't be the only LHD country after Brexit - the other island countries Malta and Cyprus will still be LHD.

Sorry but we along with Malta,Cyprus and the UK are RHD countries.

It would be a great idea from a consumers point of view as in cheaper cars etc but we don't have a government that could manage the change over.

Del2005

Hellrazer wrote: »

It would be a great idea from a consumers point of view as in cheaper cars etc but we don't have a government that could manage the change over.

We've some of the cheapest pre tax cars in the EU so changing to LHD won't affect that and since our 2nd hand cars are already substantially cheaper then cars on the continent we won't be getting any cheaper used cars from them, they more than likely would go the other way and therefore increase our prices.

So what's the benefit to the consumer, and the government, for spending billions to reengineer our roads so we can drive on the right? Because I can't see any

Sam Russell

When electric cars are mainsteam, such as the planned VW range, It is quite likely the difference between RHD and LHD will require a simple shift of controls as it will be close to fly-by-wire. Steering might be direct, but that is already power assisted.

In manufacturing, there is little difference in cost for handed products - it generally consists of just putting the blank in the other way round/up.

It would be very expensive to change over - think just in terms of the cost of moving all road signs from one side to the other. Also, how many roads would have the wrong length of slip road, and the wrong turn approach for the opposite direction?

If we were to change, we should have done it in 1973 before we widened all the boreens into motorways.

bear1

I can just see the dail sitting where it's proposed and the first question being asked is "how do we have switch lanes in place on a 500+km border with a jurisdiction that drives on the left.
Then the next question I'd personally wonder is how to educate those that can barely understand the meaning of an overtaking lane on a motorway to now use their rhd cars on the right side of the road and what's the budget of our health service to deal with all the accidents.
Then modify our toll booths and multistory car parks to be now on the left side of the car etc etc etc.
If we were attached physically to mainland europe then yeah but as we aren't... what's the point?
We'd cause more issues than we'd solve and I can just imagine the British response to us needing infrastructure on their side of the border to cope with the switch.

mdebets

bear1 wrote: »

Then the next question I'd personally wonder is how to educate those that can barely understand the meaning of an overtaking lane on a motorway to now use their rhd cars on the right side of the road.

That's the easy part. Don't tell them. They will think they are still in the overtaking lane when they are in the right-hand lane, so a win-win for everyone,

ironclaw

bear1 wrote: »

I can just see the dail sitting where it's proposed and the first question being asked is "how do we have switch lanes in place on a 500+km border with a jurisdiction that drives on the left.

The Newry Switch-a-Roo Interchange of course!

https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-04-15/lotus-bridge-macau-maphead-ken-jennings

On thread though, swapping roadsides would be absolutely bonkers at this point. I'd be more in favour of adjusting some of our road rules e.g. 'Free Left on Red' at junctions like in the States. Its amazing how much time we waste sitting in traffic especially considering the cartel on traffic light contracts we seem to have. Anyone sat at Cherrywood recently where they removed the roundabout? Classic example.

Isambard

i can't see it happening unless the UK NI do it and that's just not going to happen.

bear1

I'd suggest we join schengen tbh