I often think we should have changed to the same as the Europeans it would have made more sense, even though i think right hand drive is more natural certainly for a right handed person. However if we were going do do that we would have had to have done many years ago when roads were simple, to do it today would be virtually impossible. but then it wouldnt happen anyway with our british mentallity of our way is best.

 

To be honest it makes complete sense for everybody in the world to drive on the same side of the road and the UK and commonwealth being in the minority, as far as countries who drive on the left, should, imho, switch to left hand drive cars and swap sides of the road.

For manufacturers it would save millions in design and development costs as bodies do not need to be handed, crash testing for left and right hand drive doesnt need to be done to both and all sorts of other components hat have to be Engineered for right and left hand drive.

Not sure its completely practical to change sides (traffic lights, island entrances and exits, toll booths, car washes etc etc) Would cost the country millions to do.

 

And Japan. And that wee country called India...

the entire list is here:

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

 

It's not just the UK and Commonwealth. Japan and Thailand for example also drive on the left. I think the others should change

 

Heh, changing sides now just would not work, far too much money for that and thats what drives the world isnt it, money and accountants

 

Sweden changed to driving on the right in 1964 - "H-Day". ("Right" starts with an H in Swedish).

But with today's traffic density in the UK, it would be a non-starter to waste money on changing the side of the road we are supposed to drive on even before thinking about the terrible accidents we would get!

After all, as the RHD countries include Japan and India, the numbers of people where you drive on the left isn't so many fewer (as a percentage) than those who drive on the right!

Besides, who's going to tell the Samoans? :lol:

Parts of Austria used to drive on the left until 1938 - I've seen footage of pre-war Vienna with large red buses driving on the left!

I know I've read that, in Italy, until the early 1920s(?), drivers were supposed to drive on one side in towns but on the other side in the country! :shake:

I also used to work with a bloke whose first overseas posting had been to a Franco-British colony in the South Seas. There, they nominally used to drive on the left for half the month and on the right the other half! (Practically, they drove in the middle because the roads weren't that wide).

 

Sweden changed to driving on the right in 1964 - "H-Day". ("Right" starts with an H in Swedish).

Yup, they did. But Sweden was kinda strange, because whilst they drove on the left hand side of the road, most cars were actually LHD... something to do with US car imports after WW2 I think.

In the future though, we'll see more and not less people driving on the correct side of the road as within the next 30 years, India is set to overtake China as the world's largest car market.

Regards

John

 

in Italy they drive in the shade.

 

Brilliant!

 

I've read somewhere that in pre-war Italy right hand drive cars were supposed to signify luxury - in fact Lancia only started making LHD cars after the war.

 

Not quite.

Lancia continued to produce right hand drive cars because they considered them safer driving up and down mountain passes (which are pretty common in Italy)

However, right-hand drive is practical even where drivers drive on the right-hand side of the road as it allows a better view of the edge of the road, which is useful when driving on rough roads in mountainous districts. This did mean that drivers of cars with centrally located floor mounted gear shifts, such as the Ardea, needed to learn how to shift with the left hand. During the 1920s Mussolini required all Italian drivers to drive on the right, but Lancia would continue, through the 1950s, to supply right hand drive cars in areas viewed by other automakers as left hand drive markets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_Ardea

 

if you like driving on the wrong side get on the boat/train and drive in france,

 

some plans for the channel crossing involved a motorway tunnel.

How would that have worked? :slap: :lol:

 

personally i love driving in europe...done itmany many times......is it just cos of the change of sides or is it actually better?.....i couldnt tell you...i just know i enjoy it...

someone mentioned sweden.....has anyone seen the piece of film from the day it actually happened?......there was a set time on a set day and everyone just swapped over...rather funny i though....lol

 

personally i love driving in europe...done itmany many times......

speaking personally, I always drive in Europe be it on the A16 autoroute, the A61 autobahn or the M1 motorway!

 

The history of which side of the road you should drive on may interest some of you. It all started back when we were riding on horseback, and just like the old spiral staircases climbing anti-clockwise, the idea was to free up your sword-hand for defending yourself in case of an attack (hence the phrase 'beware the left-handed foe - indeed the word 'sinester' comes from the latin 'sinestra' for left-handed).

The whole world used to travel on the left-hand side for this reason, including up to the time when horse-drawn carriages became commonplace. However, things started to change during the Napoleonic era when the arrogant little frenchman decided that his 'European Code' should include driving on the RIGHT, so as to differentiate with those beastly British across the channel. America, being luvvies of the French (and being closely associated through alliances, political outlook and mutual loathing of the British) followed suit.

You therefore had nearly all of mainland Europe and the fledgling United States of America dedicated to a future of right-hand drive. When the motor-car replaced our hoofed friends, these two industrial blocs churned out cars that suited their particular side of driving. Britain, and her empire around the world, followed suit. Japan, with influences drawn heavily from Britain from the training of her navy through to early advice and assistance on westernised industry, followed the British model of left-hand driving.

The result is the hegemony you see today, with the European/US nations driving on the right, with the Anglo/Commonwealth/Japanese nations driving on the left.

Whilst this is an impartial brief history of how the two different methods came about, I will just say that driving on the left was the original, correct way of doing it, and Napolean was just being stubborn and petty in his insistence on changing it!

 

hear hear!

 

In the case of ships and boats, international maritime law requires ships or boats to keep left when passing each other. According to some Britain adopted driving on the left by following maritime tradition.

There was a good reason for ships to have right hand drive, and this goes back to the Vikings and before, when ships had steering oars instead of rudders. The word "starboard side" comes from the Viking word for "steering board" (aka. steering oar), which was always placed on the right hand side of the ship because most people were right handed. The word "port side" comes from the fact that Viking ships were always docked with the port on the left in order to avoid damage to the steering oar. Docking on the left led to keeping to the left in rivers which was also adopted in the rules for passing ships the open sea.

There is at least one other good reason for driving on the left hand side (at least in the northern hemisphere). In the northern hemisphere most tornados turn in an anti-clockwise direction due to the spin of the earth. Therefore if you are driving and you are hit by a tornado it is likely to spin you in a direction that will force you off the road rather than into oncoming traffic as would happen if you drove on the right.

So I think Britain got it right driving on the left.

 

Regardless of origin I feel the UK should have switched to the right a long time ago! Now due to the complexity of the road system it is impossible and will never be worth the cost.

Metrication however needs to happen, can be done overnight, and is relativity cheap. The sooner we metricate our road signage the better!

 

IIRC the reason for driving on the right is indeed related to horse-drawn carts, because the reins were held in the right hand and so the driver tended to be on the left hand side so that the reins were in the centre...

...certainly Spanish trains are of an odd gauge to stop the French invading again...

The sooner we metricate our road signage the better!

we all know what happens then...

...I heard of a group of four friends who were sharing the driving in France. Each of the first three was a little nervous at first and then relaxed into tootling along with everyone else.

The fourth one was a decent driver at home but, in France, he was driving like a maniac, tearing through the towns and villages.

Until he parked the car and said to the other three "Well, I know the French are different, but 50mph in town and 90mph on the country roads is just too fast."

BTW Delta, that's an impressive posting record there. Six posts with a gap of four and a half years between two of them!

 

Heh! Yeah! I don't post much anyway but I'm pretty sure I came back one day and deleted all my old posts. I do that from time to time.

 

Heh! Yeah! I don't post much anyway but I'm pretty sure I came back one day and deleted all my old posts. I do that from time to time.

as a non-supporter, you're only allowed 5 PMs so it makes sense to delete those periodically.

We can delete our own posts. You may have guessed that, in practice, I don't. But you've given me an idea.

Yep, deleted posts reduce the post count!