I’ve spent a lot of time driving in England, which is a thing that happens when you marry an English woman. I enjoy many things about being in England but one of my favorite is driving there. English roads, especially the back roads or “B” roads as they are called, are the best. They are narrow and almost never straight. You are always in a corner of some sort. The roads are also almost never flat. They dip and dive constantly and a good car will flow and glide smoothly over these undulations. When you find a car that does this well it’s an absolute joy. Steering also has to be precise since there is no room for error; the roads are simply too narrow.
The other aspect of driving in England I really like is driving on the left. For an American, it totally screws with your mind. You’re driving on the “wrong” side of the road. You’re sitting on the “wrong” side of the car, you’re trying to shift with your left hand, and the mirrors are all in the “wrong” places. You’re very aware of how concentrated you need to be on the act of driving while at the same time navigating roads that are more like a funfair ride than actual roads. Get it right, though, and it’s an absolute blast!
The whole thing got me thinking of why do the English drive on the left while we Americans, and most of the rest of the world, drive on the right? So I did some research and here’s what I found.
England is certainly not the only country that drives on the left. In fact, about 35% of the world’s population drive on the left including Japan, Malta, Cyprus, Indonesia, Ireland and most of the old English empire countries: India, Australia, New Zealand, and a number of African countries. The history of driving on the left goes back many centuries to the time of knights and castles. Like today, most people in the time of knights were right handed so they would have held their swords in their right hand and carried them on the left side of their body. When meeting another person coming towards them on the road, it was natural to be on the left side of the path since that would allow them to offer a hand in greeting or defend themselves should they get attacked. It also kept their swords away from the passerby should they try to steal it.
Since knights wore their swords on their left side, they would mount their horses from the left as well since that way the sword would not get in their way. It then made sense to place the horse against the left curb so they would be able to mount their horses from the curb, not the middle of the street.
There is even evidence to suggest that driving on the left goes back way farther than that. In 1998, a road leading to an old Roman quarry was excavated in England. The ruts in the road were significantly deeper on the left side of the road leading away from the quarry than the right side. Since the carts would have been much heavier leaving the quarry than returning to it, it suggests that the carts leaving the quarry were driving on the left side of the road.
A little later, in the year 1300, Pope Boniface VIII decreed that all pilgrims traveling to Rome should keep to the left.
Later still, in the mid 1700’s, traffic on London Bridge was getting so bad and chaotic that in 1756, a law was passed requiring all traffic on the bridge to keep to the left. This was later codified nationally in 1835 in the British National Highway Code.
More recently, in 1969 a study showed that left driving countries had lower accident rates. It was suggested that this is because the right eye and the right hand are dominant in most people. When driving on the left, the right eye is what you use to see down the road past the car in front of you and in the rearview mirror and the right hand stays on the wheel while the left hand works the gearshift and the radio knobs.
Knowing all of this, the real question becomes “why doesn’t everyone drive on the left?” The answer to this question is a bit muddier but it seems to have started in the late 1700’s with the advent of large wagons used for hauling goods. These wagons were pulled by several pairs of horses and did not have a driver’s seat so the driver would sit on the left rear horse so that his right hand was free to use the whip. Since he sat on the left, he would want to pass oncoming wagons on the right so he could see how close his wheels were to the oncoming traffic. There wasn’t much need for such large wagons in Britain since the roads were much smaller and distances shorter so they never became popular there.
At about the same time, Napoleon was doing his marauding across much of Europe and he decreed that France would drive on the right just because he was ornery and wanted everything anti-British. It was also because the French aristocracy drove on the left and he wanted nothing to do with those clowns. Lastly, we believe he was left handed so he probably wore his sword on the right and mounted his horse from the right. Who knows? What we do know is that he wanted everyone to drive on the right and he made it a rule in all the countries he invaded which did NOT include England. Remember Waterloo? Yeah, me neither. Suffice it to say that Napoleon was stopped in his tracks before he reached England. So, England stayed driving on the left.
About 100 years later, as automobiles started to come on the scene, it was a bit of a free-for-all as to which side of the car the steering wheel was on. This included the US, but when Henry Ford came out with the Model T, he put the steering wheel on the left side. Since this car was such a huge success, left hand drive took over the industry and became the norm.
During the 20th century, there was a movement in Europe to standardize the rules of the road which meant everyone had to drive on the right. The last European country to make the shift was Sweden on September 3, 1967. At 4:50 AM, after spending over $120 million on education and new road signs, all traffic in the country stopped and after 10 minutes restarted on the right side of the road. Can you imagine something like that happening today? Well, it did in Samoa in 2009. They switched from driving on the right side of the road to the left side to be like their closest neighbors Australia and New Zealand.
Will other countries make a switch in the future? Who knows, but what I do know is that there is about a ⅓ to ⅔ split in countries driving on the left vs the right so if you want to go on vacation in countries that drive on the other side, keep an open mind because it really is a lot of fun and a great challenge for anyone who loves driving.
I know of two oddities involving opposite side driving and large trucks. In Italy right hand drive trucks were popular for driving in the mountains because the driver had a good view of the edge of the road. Conversely a lot of open pits ha e the haul trucks drive on the left side, because the offset cabs keep the drivers safer in a collision.
It amuses me that wagon drivers thought the whip more important than the reins
Here I thought it was a completely arbitrary determination to decide which side to drive on. You learn something every day, good article!
Personally I’ve always found the argument about keeping your dominant hand on the steering wheel to be backwards. Using a steering wheel requires almost no dexterity, it’s just a big thing you turn left or right a bit. Using a manual gearstick, operating the radio and HVAC, or (god help us all) using a touchscreen, all require much more motor control. That’s the stuff I want my right hand for, my left can handle a steering wheel just fine.
I didn’t write this, found it on Quora from a fellow named David Moe drawing from a now defunct Vancouver Sun article:
Well, in Canada, originally half the provinces drove on the left like the English and half on the right like the French due to their history. After provinces started building interprovincial highways, this didn’t work particularly well because it got drivers confused, so all the provinces agreed to drive on the right like the United States.
British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the USA.
Vancouver has the distinction of being the last city on the continent to abandon the British left-driving system (Newfoundland is an island which joined Canada later). The interior of the province had changed to the new system in 1921. On January 1, 1922, Vancouver drivers finally made the switch to the right. The cars switched sides at midnight and the predicted chaos did not ensue.
The last province to switch was Newfoundland, which switched sides in 1947 and joined Canada in 1949. It didn’t make much difference to Newfoundlanders because their fishing boats continued to go down the right side of channels like always. Thus, we now have one system for all of North and South America, except for Guyana, Surinam, and several islands in the Caribbean.
As a right-handed person, I far preferred driving cars set up to drive on the right. Especially for manuals, using your dominant hand to steer and shift with the non-dominant felt far more natural. It did take a while to feel comfortable keeping the car to the left in situations like roundabouts, but it went faster than I would have assumed.
Mind you this was in Sri Lanka so there was a ton of other cultural shifts in driving to absorb, which might have actually made the transition easier. (Hint: you want a good, loud, working horn.)
What are these ‘roads’ you speak of?
You must drive a Delorean
I’ve done some driving in England thanks to a very brave friend who lent me a car when visiting. Once out in it it’s not really a problem – but – the entrances to parking lots at industrial estates and shopping areas is where I always had trouble.
I’m from New Zealand, where we drive on the correct side of the road. I digress, the only really scary moment for me was the first time I was in a country driving on the right was Vanuatu, I was in a tourist shuttle and we came up to a roundabout and my mind immediately went into panic as it felt like we were going the wrong way into the roundabout. After that it felt natural. The only downside to being in a rhd country is that we can’t have so many good things, our cars are skewed by what’s popular in Japan and the UK. NZ, South Africa and Australia don’t really need little city cars, our cities are smaller and less congested and our public transport (outside of the cities) is near non-existent.
I’ve driven thousands of miles in the US now, and it takes literally ten minutes to adjust after picking up the rental. Luckily those airport support roads are pretty empty although coming off a ten hour flight doesn’t help.
The first time I drove in the US I did actually go round a small roundabout the wrong way, but it was late and I realised my mistake straight away.
I find the standards of driving in the US are worse, but in some ways it’s easier to drive in the US because the traffic density is much lower and the roads are broader. Your on ramps and off ramps work differently to our though (ie when the whole lane splits off and you just stay in that lane, rather than peeling off). And no roundabouts.
Right on red is fucking genius though.
The handful of times I’ve been in London I was never even slightly tempted to rent a car and attempt to drive. But when my wife and I went to Ireland I figured it might be fun… and it was! We landed at the Shannon Airport, rented a Nissan Micra, and went on our way. Even when just leaving the airport, the road’s a wee little 2-lane road straight out of Disneyland’s Autopia, with grass and trees and maybe one other car. It was like a toy road with toy cars on it. Roundabouts were a breeze. Everyone was lovely and nobody was in a hurry. One weird thing was that the only bit of roadside trash we saw was the burned-out hulk of some Car-B-Que that had been sitting in the immaculate green grass by the side of the M18 motorway long enough to be thoroughly rusty, and my assumption was that eventually someone would come by to haul it away but there didn’t seem to be any rush. Anyway, I’d happily drive again the next time we go there. It was fun.
Yeah, even as a native Londoner I wouldn’t recommend owning a car there now unless absolutely necessary (ie you live on the outskirts). I sometimes have to go back down to take Mother Dearest to various appointments to keep her alive for another month and it takes me a moment to get my elbows out and start being assertive. But with the congestion charge and clean air zone charges it’s now also an expensive endeavour for me with the Range Rover.
Drove on the left in both the UK (Gatwick to Oxford and back) and New Zealand (just all over both islands), and it’s…fine? The hardest part for me is accurately placing the car since I’m accustomed to having ~5 feet of metal on the other side, although outside of parking lots I never had much trouble remembering which side IW as supposed to be on. The HiAce camper in New Zealand at least had mirrors all over the place that were a huge help with placing it properly.
Oh, and be on the lookout for anyone who puts their wipers on coming up to a corner by accident.
I once bought an old RHD Triumph Dolomite on UK eBay and drove it around England and then over to the continent.
The only requirement was a break-down kit with a bright yellow vest and a headlight sticker kit. The carefully shaped black decals were to applied to the headlights to keep from blinding oncoming traffic. I installed the kit while wondering if there was any chance my 50 year old crapwagon had properly aimed headlights!
But also WAAAAAY more traffic cameras. 🙁
The biggest challenge I had adapting to driving on the left was that after years of driving on the right it has become natural to line my body up on the left-hand side of the lane to keep the car centered. My brain wanted to do that even when driving on the left, which often made things uncomfortably close to the car for my passenger.
After about 2-weeks of driving through Ireland I arrived at the wedding I was there for and discovered many acquaintances with damaged or missing left-side mirrors, so I guess I was not alone with that challenge.
It was a blast though. The roads of Ireland are very similar to the B-roads described above (and yes, with sheep) which were fun and sometimes scary. Best part was that since I could drive a stick, renting a car cost me half as much as all my auto-only friends.
Yep, clipped the left mirror on my honeymoon in Ireland. The rental guy just waved if off and chuckled when we returned to the airport.
I drove the whole way; my bride was having none of it. She played navigator. On the many twisties, I would glance over and see her rotating the map this way and that in her lap, steering vicariously, kind of like the invisible brake when you teach your kid to drive.
So, why do people in 2015 Hill Valley California drive their hover-converted cars on the right? Why even have roads in the sky?
As a rural mail carrier who dailys a rhd cherokee across 150 miles of kansas a day the worst part is the questions at the gas station. It gets old after the first hundred times of being asked is it weird. Yes for the first day; after that its just as natural as driving from the left.
As the owner of a few British-market RHD cars in Seattle I’ve gotten used to the inevitable “You’re driving on the wrong side!” and so I usually respond with “No, this is the right side.”
I like to think most of them get it.
My response is that I’m driving on the other side
I’ve driven about 8000 km (5000 miles) in the UK, Ireland and Australia and after the first day I prefer driving on the left. I am right-handed so the dominant hand stays on the wheel, rather than shifting, and the dominant eye looks down the road, rather than at the mirror. One thing the article doesn’t mention is that the pedals stay in the same place either way. However the turn signals can be either right or left of the wheel depending on the make of car.
Drove in the UK in 2019.
I can drive a manual, but I told the rental agent that expecting me to learn how to shift AND drive on the other side of the road at the same time…on the fly…IN LONDON was perhaps a risk he shouldn’t take with his company’s car.
He laughed…….and not with me. :/
Also, our opinons are on opposite sides here: I hated the B roads, and god…..roundabouts broke my brain.
0/10 would not recommend.
And here I was thinking it was so that the right hand was free to stuff greasy fries into one’s mouth.
Driving on the left only tripped me up a couple of times. I’ve done it in England, Ireland, and Barbados. Barbados was tricky because it was nearly all gravel roads once you got off the ring road, and you had to remember to go left when another car approached. And I tried to go to the wrong side of the parking lot kiosk pulling out of the rental car lot at Heathrow. And attempted to shift the door handle a couple of times.
But roundabouts posed no problem at all. I was halfway into the first one without even thinking before I realized “hey, I went to the left!” I just felt natural to go that way, since I was sitting on the right side of the car.
By the way, the right-handed/sword-on-the-left thing is also the reason why men’s jackets button left-over-right instead of right-over-left like women’s: You can un-button it more easily with your left hand and draw your sword.
I’ve had a couple of moments,the worst being more funny than dangerous.
I was on a gravel back road on a motorcycle.I instinctively moved to what i though was the correct side,only for the oncoming car to do the same.So i moved *right* hoping he’d realize his error.
Eventually,too many seconds later, i got it and my annoyance turned to embarrassed apologies.He thought it funny as hell.
By the way, i was told as a child that womens clothes had opposite buttons so we wouldnt wear the wrong ones by mistake. It never sounded like a good answer even back then
The chaos caused in Jasonia when it was proposed that the change from driving on the left to driving on the wrong sides be phased in over two weeks, with commercial vehicles ( but not buses) making the change in week one followed by private cars in week two is the reason why all Jasonians drive in the middle of the road. Except for the buses of course.
One product of Sweden’s switch is this catchy promotional song from The Telstars with a title that translates to “Stay to the Right, Svensson.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ODZtwkBYPs
Serious question. How the fuck do you transition to the left for Ireland??
Well, that was stupid. I meant, how do you transition to any country to the left as you are driving into it.
You don’t. NI and ROI both drive on the right.
I mean left.
Most borders from LHD to RHD are across water, exceptions being in African countries, possibly with slightly more chaotic rules of road anyway.
There’s a bridge being built between China (LHD) and Hong Kong (RHD) that swaps the flow of traffic.
Yeah, I was thinking land access. A bridge or some kind of “special” routing makes sense. I’ll have to check out the Lotus Bridge.
I’ve crossed many borders but never had to left-drive.
The Lotus Bridge between Macau and mainland China is one solution.
English roads also have better illumination, better road markings, less stop signs, less traffic lights, and more passing zones.
And more roundabouts in lieu of intersections, and more driver training.
Our driver training is pretty good, but could be better. But generally our road furniture is exceptional (as is most of Europe).
Not from what I’ve seen. In the countryside no markings at all. No fog, no centerline nothing. In the city they do have markings. They don’t have an inch of pavement that isn’t painted telling you to do something. It’s like a runway and taxiway at the airport. Noone knows what it all means. I believe it is a disease that affects the human condition. Let’s create new and more laws for safety without thinking about at what point does it start to fail. Make cars safer by adding more crap, more steel etc, but now the driver can’t see out of the car. Remove those barriers? No put cameras and computers in blocking it more.
I believe Sometimes when shit doesn’t work like you want take a step back rethink it make a different approach. Don’t just add a bad idea on top of a bad idea. Think about it. Warning messages that tell you don’t take an electronic device into the shower, cruise control doesn’t drive your RV so don’t engage and leave to make coffee, don’t take medication if you’re allergic to it. Hell Darwin’s survival of the fittest no longer works if we keep morons and evil people alive and in society. If they are dumb enough to light a match to see what is causing that gasoline smell, let’s not save them or reward them if they live or their progeny if they die. Instead use their estate for the cleanup.
There’s been plenty of experiments proving that taking away street markings and even traffic lights can make drivers more aware and safer.
There’s a few intersections in Coventry city center that do this. They are totally unmarked and with no lights, and they’re in a twenty zone so low speed. For the most part it works well with a whole bunch of mixed road users and pedestrians. The idea is you slow right down and proceed when it’s clear. But they wouldn’t work somewhere like London where it’s much, much busier.
I was with you right up until you invoked “survival of the fittest.” Humans circumvented evolution long ago, and thank goodness because evolution is a heartless bastard. As someone who isn’t a heartless bastard, I say fuck that. Our primary means of increasing our fitness is through cultural adaptation, not evolutionary adaptation.
This has been such a successful innovation that we now dominate the planet (to the point where it is actually a pretty big problem, but that’s another conversation) and are able to harness the abilities of individuals who would otherwise have died early due to, oh, nearsightedness or staph infections or any number of other commonplace problems that we no longer think of as problems. Heck, it’s the reason why we’re able to have such big brains and walk on our hind legs. The only reason we can get away with narrow pelvises and big heads is through the cultural adaptation of assisted childbirth—otherwise, evolutionary pressures would have kept us microcephalic and quadrupedal so that we could actually get born without destroying our mothers a good 25-50% of the time.
It’s also why we have cars! Humans didn’t evolve go be able to travel 100 mph with ease. We came up with a cultural adaptation in the form of a tool that allows us to travel faster and more effortlessly than any other animal could ever dream of, and it’s brought us tremendous advantages. It’s brought its share of problems as well, but I never said we’re infallible. We just figured out a way of developing and adapting far faster and more radically than natural selection allows, and prevented the misery and premature death of untold billions of our conspecifics in the process.
Fuck survival of the fittest. What makes humans human is that we work together to improve our collective circumstances, and we take care of our own. If not for that, most of us wouldn’t even be here.
But more sheep
But also WAAAAAY more traffic cameras.
Interesting. I did not expect that explanation. It came right out of left field.
But in all seriousness. I assumed that it was some right handed agenda as to our left drivers seat, but right side driving.
At what point and time can we get together as a group and agree that moronic puns and dad jokes are not remotely funny, don’t require any intelligence, and noone but the poster thinks they should be posted? I don’t believe in banishment but how about warnings? That other old lame site that is hemorrhaging readership loved puns and now that they are irrelevant the infection is arriving here.
Dad jokes and puns are light-hearted and fun.
Now, to paraphrase my father, you sir, may do one of the following:
1.) Go pound sand
2.) Go soak your head
Lighten up, Francis.
This is your warning that you are in fact, a stick in the mud.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To each their own. Very cliched sayings, but also accurate. If it’s not your thing, then feel free to get angry and skim over it. Puns don’t detract from the article.
Hopefully never
The answer to your question is: Never