Reply With QuoteIt comes from our British heritage.
There's a lot of other countries that also drive on the left, but the majority drive on the right.
Why the left?
Anyone able to answer the question as to why australia adopted to drive on the left side of the road with right hand drive?
Seems to me that we are in the minority.
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It comes from our British heritage.
There's a lot of other countries that also drive on the left, but the majority drive on the right.
Sweden actually changed from right hand drive(driving on the left) to left hand drive (driving on the right) in 1967,,,pretty impossible today with all the freeways etc,
Last edited by mandc; 29-01-20 at 10:52 PM.
Driving on the left dates from the time when knights road around on horses. These knights wore swords, and the majority being right handed, wore them on the left hip so they could easily be drawn with the right hand. This led to horses being mounted from the left so the rider could throw his leg over the horse without it becoming tangled in the sword. Horses were mounted at the side of the road with the rider facing in the direction he was going to ride, hence the horse was ridden on the left of the road.
This became generally the procedure in countries who had mounted troops, however Napoleon instructed his troops to ride on the other side of the road to confuse the English. Other continental countries followed suit while England and it's colonies stuck to the left.
The reason for the US driving on the right is different. Early horse drawn transport often consisted of carts that were led by a man walking beside the lead horse holding the bridle in his right hand (most being right handed) so as to easily see, and to talk with men leading carts in the opposite direction hence they led those carts on the right of the road.
When cars came along, drivers followed suit.
i noticed that in Japan ,in the 1930s,prior to making thier own cars and trucks, they were importing Chevy and Ford trucks which were LHD. But when Japan starting producing their own copies of the same vehicles , they were built as RHD. so it could be something to do with how the streets were laid out as well.
porkop (30-01-20)
Because pheggie said we have to
But to the actual topic, yeah, from our British ties basically.
porkop (30-01-20)
An interesting podcast from 99% Invisible on the SwedesOriginally Posted by mandc
BTW, Western Samoa changed to driving on the left in 2009:
"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Issac Asimov
hinekadon (30-01-20)
Further details, I researched the above over 60 years ago when I was a teenager (no internet then). I asked my father at around the time I started saving for my first car, while still at high school, he didn't know. So I visited the library and read all I could find on the subject, there wasn't much, but I did discover that it was believed the Romans drove on the left in England (probably elsewhere). This was determined by the grooves from the wheels of carts carrying stone from a quarry for Roman building operations. The grooves on the left were deeper coming out of he quarry, when the carts were full of stone and shallow on the other side from empty carts going back for more stone.
However when the Romans left so did the carts and most of the horses, many Englishmen walked to get from point to point. It was only in the age of chivalry when armed knights started riding horses, soon to be followed by armies with some cavalry started riding and the standard of mounting a horse from the left became entrenched.
Some present references to the US and other places mention carts with teams of horses and a rider on the rear left horse as being the reason. There is an error in this reasoning because early teams of horses were led as I mentioned above, it is possible that a rider was used later, but as you all know from the wild west movies, the covered wagons were controlled from a seat on the wagon. Why on earth would a rider sit on a horse for a long trek when they could sit on a seat on the wagon.
I expect it was similar in Europe, but perhaps they all switched when Napoleon took France the other way???
Last edited by RogerTheDoger; 30-01-20 at 11:40 PM.
OR perhaps the conspiracy theory of the left-handers taking over the world hasn't succeeded yet and they are still working on it ? I do know that left-handers get annoyed when you call them kack-handers just the same as catholicers get peeved at being called left footers ! one has to admire them though as they are at some disadvantage for life and confused when they come across a left-handed nut or a labour supporter take pheggie for example was he left-handed ?
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