Why do we drive on the Left...?

Dub13

Anybody know the story behind why us and the UK drive on the left and 90% of the world drive on the right..?

aidan_walsh

We felt like being odd.

Redshift

About a quarter of the world drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old British colonies.
Japan also drive on the leftclick here for this explanation.

This strange quirk perplexes the rest of the world; however, there is a perfectly good reason.

Up to the late 1700's, everybody travelled on the left side of the road because it's the sensible option for feudal, violent societies of mostly right-handed people.

What does this International sign mean?


Lorries keep left
Lorry lane
No overtaking lorries



Jousting knights with their lances under their right arm naturally passed on each other's right, and if you passed a stranger on the road you walked on the left to ensure that your protective sword arm was between yourself and him.

Revolutionary France, however, overturned this practice as part of its sweeping social rethink. A change was carried out all over continental Europe by Napoleon.The reason it changed under Napoleon was because he was left handed his armies had to march on the right so he could keep his sword arm between him and any opponent.

From then on, any part of the world which was at some time part of the British Empire was thus left hand and any part colonised by the French was right hand.

In America, the French colonised the southern states (Louisiana for instance) and the Canadian east coast (Quebec). The Dutch colonised New York (or New Amsterdam). The Spanish and Portugese colonised the southern Americas. So The British were a minority in shaping the 'traffic'.

The drive-on-the-right policy was adopted by the USA, which was anxious to cast off all remaining links with its British colonial past

Once America drove on the right, left-side driving was ultimately doomed. If you wanted a good reliable vehicle, you bought American, for a period they only manufactured right-hand-drive cars.

From then on many countries changed out of necessity.

Today, the EC would like Britain to fall into line with the rest of Europe, but this is no longer possible. It would cost billions of pounds to change everything round.
The last European country to convert to driving on the right was Sweden in 1967. While everyone was getting used to the new system, they paid more attention and took more care, resulting in a reduction of the number of road accident casualties.

Countries that drive on the

Taken from http://www.2pass.co.uk/goodluck.htm

KTRIC

The reason we drive on the left is because in the early 1900's when the rules of the roads were being decided alot of countries decided to drive on the right hand side. It was only countries under British rule that drive on the left as they did not want to be the same as the French because the political relationship was not good between the 2 countries and England wanted to be different.

mike65

Once America drove on the right, left-side driving was ultimately doomed. If you wanted a good reliable vehicle, you bought American,

Rofl! And that from a uk site...

Mike.

danyosan

yep the reason is the one given about the sword arms, was about to post the answer till i read the prev posts

cregser

So we have a better reason for driving on the left in case we want to joust with passers by. Makes sense for when the world runs out of gasoline...

Silvera

Map of countries which drive on the left -

Rabies

danyosan wrote:

yep the reason is the one given about the sword arms, was about to post the answer till i read the prev posts

But now on horse back we alwyas pass left hand to left hand
We ride on the right hand side , unless of course we are on a road.

shagman

So the majority of countries in the world drive on the right because napoleon was a south paw :rolleyes: and if he hadn't been such a pain in the hole or even if he'd been a right handed pain in the hole there would only ever have been RHD vehicles built. So anyone who dies in a car accident due to driving on the wrong side of the road after coming off the ferry is a very belated victim of Napoleons runaway ego!!! :eek: :rolleyes:
De Bashturd !!

Balfa

I don't believe the thing about changing it because napoleon was left-handed, though it definitely originated in France. There's another story that says it became customary to drive 6-horse carts, and the horse driver would sit on the left-rear horse so that he could spend most of the time whipping the horses with his right hand, but then obviously he wanted to be closer to passing drivers for defensive reasons, so he drove on the right.

Ernie Ball

Another question: Which is better and why?

KTRIC

Ernie Ball wrote:

Another question: Which is better and why?

The other one

Alun

Here's another reference

http://www.brianlucas.ca/roadside/

Dades

Ernie Ball wrote:

Another question: Which is better and why?

A lot of drivers seem think somewhere in the middle is good.

I drive a leftie car and love it.

egan007

Dub13 wrote:

Anybody know the story behind why us and the UK drive on the left and 90% of the world drive on the right..?

Well we do because the UK told us to - so that's the problem halved...

the_syco

Another mess that we can blame on the Brits:p

Just wondering: as there are so few cars built to drive on the left, would that contribute to the cost of the car?
And yes, I'm aware everything else, aside from the drivers seat, can be built for both cars.

Alun

the_syco wrote:

Another mess that we can blame on the Brits:p

If Napoleon hadn't been quite so ruthless in insisting that the countries of mainland Europe drive on the right, we may not have been quite so alone.

Just wondering: as there are so few cars built to drive on the left, would that contribute to the cost of the car?
And yes, I'm aware everything else, aside from the drivers seat, can be built for both cars.

You forget that there are some quite significant sized countries that drive on the left ... Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia etc. Then there's India, which admittedly is not a big car using nation (yet), but who knows how things may pan out in the future. If you work it out by population then a good third of the world's population would drive on the left, if they had a car, that is!

green-blood

because we were the UK when the motor car was invented.

sweden was never in the uk and they drove on the leftuntil the 70s

mike65

They did that to annoy the Norwegians.

Mike.

magpie

Civilised people drive on the left and mark the speed of their passage in miles per hour. Unwashed violent revolutionary Sans-Coulottes drive on the right and use metric system. Unfortunately despite valiant efforts by persons dwelling betwixt France and Russia during the course of the 20th Century the hegemony of ver uppity frog in Europe continues apace, hence the utterly pointless changeover to km/ph (I know what would make the roads even safer... why don't we measure our speed in centimetres per lunar orbit) and its only a matter of time before we change over to driving on the right. C'est La Vie ~climbs steps of guillotine~