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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

The interesting question is perhaps did the UK ever consider switching like e.g. Sweden did when they realized driving on the right was becoming the norm in the region? Being an island, the biggest reason would perhaps be that it was always going to be driving mostly European built cars from Germany, France etc, some of which will be models that aren't even sold to e.g. Japan, India or Australia, so the UK would risk being the sole market for some models' in right hand steering

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If driving on the right was a French idea, and even 'worse' Napoleon's idea, I think the answer to your question must be: "over my dead body" (in Tim Curry's voice) ;)

That being said, apparently the UK government did consider swapping in the late (swinging) 60s but eventually decided against it. This was probably considered following Sweden's own change in 1967.

I think the island factor is huge. There’s no point where a road would need to flip from left to right hand driving, whereas Sweden has countless crossings with neighbouring countries. I just can’t see it ever being worth the disruption in the UK when every vehicle has a natural “reset” point anyway.

>There’s no point where a road would need to flip from left to right hand driving

There would be if they built a road tunnel.

Sure, they also would if they filled in the channel and established hundreds of miles of land connections to Europe. But last I checked they have plans for neither.

I believe the OP is referring to the channel tunnel.

The Channel Tunnel (French: Tunnel sous la Manche), sometimes referred to informally as the Chunnel,[3][4] is a 50.46-kilometre (31.35 mi) undersea railway tunnel, opened in 1994, that connects Folkestone (Kent, England) with Coquelles (Pas-de-Calais, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is 75 metres (246 ft) below the sea bed and 115 metres (377 ft) below sea level.[5][6][7] At 37.9 kilometres (23.5 mi), it has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world and is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world. The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph).[8] The tunnel is owned and operated by Getlink, formerly Groupe Eurotunnel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel

Thatcher did want it to be a road tunnel but at least common sense prevailed.

Well, don't underestimate the dutch.

https://delta.tudelft.nl/en/article/damming-north-sea-good-i...

No way in hades would the UK ever switch. Few on HN are old enough to remember the fight over the kilogram. That was intense enough. In terms of being consistent with the outside world, the UK is more likely to adopt metric speed limits. That certainly won't ever happen either. Abolition of the monarchy and adoption of the Euro are more likely this century than metric speed limits. The concept of the UK driving on the right side of the road is in DrWho territory.

Switching now would be out of the question even for Sweden who isn't perpetually doing the opposite of everyone else. With modern infrastructure it's simply too expensive. In the 50s and 60s it was doable.

My question wasn't whether the UK would ever do it (now) but whether they did or should have considered it in the early 60s.

Not sure what I feel about the speed limits. Being part metric and part imperial seems like the worst of both worlds tbh. The pint is fine. You aren't going to do a lot of math with the pint. Worst case you'll wonder how many pints to a 50L keg). But mph is just terrible. I mean just do km/h when everything else is metric in terms of distance! Also, do L/100km not mpg (or km/L). The volume-per-distance is the one that composes mathematically e.g. in averages.

I think there would be some appetite but I cannot imagine the short term chaos it would cause. Surely it would cost the country a fortune and also I could see insurance companies driving up the cost of premiums.

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