Hacker News Reader

Comment by abhibeckert | Hacker News Reader

> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspective

In (musical) theatre we do it the other way around. The we call it "stage left" and "stage right" or "SL and SR" since we use abbreviations everywhere in our notes. It's always from the "stage manager's perspective" which is traditionally (but not always) facing the audience.

If the stage manager is facing a different way that doesn't affect the meaning of left/right.

It's from their perspective because they are basically the only person who isn't running around like a chook with their head cut off (because their eyes are glued to the script and video screens - https://youtu.be/DP2QOmN57iU?t=82).

View on HN

In the automotive trade, a vehicle has a "driver's side" and "passenger side". This only partly solves the ambiguity, because of course some countries drive on the left.

I thought it would be difficult when I bought a car in Australia to manage shifting with my left hand, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy. I had been under the impression for some reason that the clutch would be controlled with the right foot. Thank God the pedals are in the same places.

Yeah, it's a relief to discover that the driver's cockpit (for lack of a better term) is just moved side-to-side wholesale and not flipped -- EXCEPT for the shifter, which remains in the middle.

I was surprised how easily my body got used to left-hand shifting, but I will say this: I've been driving stick shifts for nearly 40 years, and never miss a gear in the US. However, driving in the UK I find that left hand is NOWHERE NEARLY AS GOOD at distinguishing 1st from 3rd as my right is. Muscle memory!

Steering-column manual shifting (e.g. "three on the tree") is pretty much extinct today, but I assume that the "move the whole driver section over" thing means that column-shifted manuals in the UK were still shifted with the right hand. Does anyone know?

The first time I drove a manual car back in the UK after a few years driving a manual in Canada I went to change gear and grabbed the door handle.

Is 1st gear still in the top left position?

Yes, the shifting pattern is exactly the same.

Sibling comment mentions indicators and wipers being switched.

Anecdote 1) In NZ I saw a car in the middle of a busy roundabout, wipers on, passengers visibly confused and crying.

Anecdote 2) A kayak guide also mentioned, that if you see someone entering a roundabout, windshield wiping, on a sunny day, you just wait and let them do their thing.

Anecdote 3) After a month in NZ I came back to Germany and actually muscle memory let me to use wipers instead of indicators on the autobahn when changing lanes. Oof.

As a speaker of a Right-To-Left language, I see this all the time in software. Some software change the UI direction when switching to Hebrew, some don't. And culturally, it seems that Arabic users _do_ prefer the UI to be switched, but Hebrew users do not.

It gets even worse when some cars put the indicator shaft on the left of the steering wheel and others put it on the right haha

The wiper thing is marque dependent, even within countries. I live in East Africa, drive on the left. German cars (I've driven a few) seem to have wiper stalks on the right and indicator control on the left. Toyotas (and I guess other Japanese cars) I've driven have it on the opposite side. Whenever I drive a friend's car, I always hit the wipers a few times at the beginning of a trip before I acclimatize.

Pamure roundabout and Royal Oak roundabouts in Auckland are interesting.

Royal Oak has an ice cream parlour with a good view of the carnage.

But usually the wipers and indicator controls are reversed, which can be embarrassing.

And it's not always reversed! Australian-made and Japanese-made cars tend to have indicator on the right stalk, and wipers on the left. European cars tend to have indicators on the left stalk, and wipers on the right. But not always!

Case in point: my wife and I live in Australia (have done so all our lives), and my wife had a 2008 Ford Focus, made in South Africa (a RHD country). Indicator stalk was on the left, wiper on the right (aka "European" style). She then upgraded to a 2020 Ford Focus, made in Germany (it's the wagon model), and the wiper is on the left, indicator on the right. Which confuses me, as I drive a BMW, which has indicators on the left and wipers on the right.

Blinkers were always on the outside when most cars had manual transmissions, the opposite would be very inconvenient (and still is). Then somehow Britain didn't challenge the EU regulation that indicators must be on the left regardless of the driving side. Japanese and Korean cars still supply right-hand indicatored-cars to Japan, Australia and New Zealand, yet left-indicatored to the UK, go figure, European ones don't give a shit, so buyers of BMWs and MBs suffer (or enjoy?) being incompatible with the rest.

The indicator should be on the outside, so you can change gear (in a manual transmission car) and indicate at the same time. It's just common sense.

I am used to the indicators on the left though when driving my BMW, so I experience the classic "wipers instead of indicators" dance many times when I drive my wife's car. As most cars nowadays are automatics, I guess this reasoning is falling out of relevance more and more.

I also want to note that not all Australian built cars had wipers on the left and indicators on the right – many GM Holden models like the Kingswood and early Commodore models from the 1980s had them both on the one stalk – that stalk being on the right of course.

Coming from the UK to Aus / NZ I was feeling smug ;) - but of course, this caught me out.

To be clear in the UK the wheel is on the right but the indicator is still on the left side of the wheel as in a European LHD car, just to keep things different.

It's not a UK thing (which side the indicator stem is), it's a manufacturer thing.

Like position of reverse gear on a H-style gear stick, some left-and-up, some right-and-down; some with a collar interlock, some with a button, some you push the whole stick down towards the ground ...

Lohe this. Reminded me of the wild complexity in our global society

Far too new for an Australian purist. It’s three on the tree thank you.

In the UK I was taught off-side and near side which referred to the sides nearest and away from the kerb as you are driving. That would be localised to which side of the road your location drives on, but not affected by left or right hand drive.

I still use is when checking tyre pressures for example, they are handy and unambiguous acronyms. For example Off Side Front ( OSF ) would be the drivers side front mostly.

Remember, in the US the inside lane is on the left, and in the UK the inside lane is on the left.

Inside is where the double yellow is.

Double yellow on the road in the UK? You got jokes my friend.

Double yellow means parking bay, right?

An interesting thing to note is how this affects the control sticks on a car.

Generally the indicators will be operated with the hand that's furthest from the centre so that you can change gear in a manual car and turn the indicators on at the same time.

Australia, Japan, New Zealand amongst others all operate their indicators with the right hand. Not in the UK though.

Even though we drive on the left our indicators swapped to match other EU[0] countries that drive on the right sometime in the 1980s.

I drive a manual car and you just get used to doing both with the same hand. All done via subconscious muscle memory.

In fact I never really gave it much though until going round a corner in an automatic hire car in Christchurch, New Zealand. Wipers scraping across a dry screen, my hand desperately hunting for the missing gear stick as other cars hooted at me...

0. Let's just ignore elephant in the room for now.

This is how I refer to my dog’s legs/paws… eg, driver side rear would be his back left leg.

He’s a sport sedan, so it applies.

It's a whole lot of weirdness, especially since most interactions in English language on the internet will be with either US or UK people.

Sometimes, you want to use passenger/driver side: for example, on my car, brake flushing procedure is always rear passenger first, no matter driving side.

And sometime you want to use left/right, which is always assumed to be according to the driver's position (so it's reversed when facing the engine), because some things aren't reversed, no matter the driving side: for example, on my car, the BCM and hood latch are always on the right side (which makes it inconvenient to open the hood for a left-side driving car).

P.S.: how do I know for certain? A friend has the exact same model but with opposite driving position because it's a UK import.

Commonly referred to as "offside" and "nearside"; terms I find confusing. I think the nearside is the side near the edge of the road, and the offside is the side near the center of the road.

If you're giving directions to somebody driving, like when reversing into a tricky spot, you can tell them to "turn driver" or "turn passenger" so there's no ambiguity.

I've heard the term "left hand down", aka turn left but much more explicit.

Why not simply "counterclockwise"?

Depends. Are you referring to the rotation of the wheel or of the car? While I've never heard it used before, the post to which you're replying avoids that ambiguity.

I'm referring to the rotation of the wheel. But there is no ambiguity - when the wheel is rotated counter clockwise the vehicle turns (as viewed from above) counter clockwise. That is not coincidence - it is very intuitive to use.

Near side and off side

For stage directions there's also "House Left" and "House Right", which are from the perspective of the audience.

And in broadcast it can be referred to as 'Camera Left' and 'Camera Right', which is also from the audience perspective.

The camera's perspective. Audience perspective could be mediated by coarse special effects such as reflecting or turning the image.

I've heard it referred to as "Audience Left" and "Audience Right", though I'm not in the industry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com