Why do some countries drive on the left and others on the right? | Hacker News Reader

Why do some countries drive on the left and others on the right?

worldstandards.eu

181 pointsstevekemp96 comments

Interesting article. I enjoyed this part in particular:

> Pakistan also considered changing to the right in the 1960s, but ultimately decided not to do it. The main argument against the shift was that camel trains often drove through the night while their drivers were dozing. The difficulty in teaching old camels new tricks was decisive in forcing Pakistan to reject the change.

Pakistan ahead of the curve with self-driving camels. Eat your heart out Google.

My favorite bit has to do with a referendum held in Sweden:

   In 1955, the Swedish government held a referendum
   on the introduction of right-hand driving. Although

   no less than 82.9% voted “no” to the plebiscite,

   the Swedish parliament passed a law on the
   conversion to right-hand driving in 1963.

True democracy just how the left likes it.

Just like the 2015 general election, then. (For those who don't know, because of FPTP, the tories won with just ~30% of all votes...)

Sorry but this is nothing like the 2015 election. Tories won with 36.9% because the other parties got even less (30.4%, 12.6%). Even with proportional representation they would have "won" and probably would have formed a majority coalition government with LibDems/UKIP and co.

I think you'll appreciate this CGO Grey video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I. You're not wrong, but the system is nonetheless extremely misrepresentative.

I remember a time when constantly trying to shoehorn politics into completely unrelated online conversations was seen as a very American phenomenon. I'm starting to see more and more of it from my fellow Brits lately though. Sorry to drag the thread even further off topic...

You sound like a republican.

That is a very strange comment to make if you mean the Irish kind.

If that is the case then I agree I was mistaken. However, in that case since neither party had a majority (in this case I mean 'a majority of the british public', not 'a majority in comparison to the other parties') a revote should have been had.

The referendum held 1980 on the discontinuation of the reliance on nuclear power was not upheld either.

The winning alternative was to not stop using nuclear power until some point in the future, where 2010 was thrown about but not set in stone. They're not all that far from that schedule seeing that a couple of reactors have been decommissioned.

Though I wonder what moral rights the people of 1980 really have to decide to keep nuclear power for themselves while saddling the people of 2010 with the trouble of shutting it down and finding alternatives, when those under 48 y.o in 2010 didn't have a vote in the referendum.

Do parents not have a moral right to look after their children?

Cushy set

The early 2000s is when the end of the expected lifetimes of the reactors falls anyway.

Really, the ones with the questionable moral are the builders of the reactors, since reactors will always have to be decommissioned due to material fatigue.

>when those under 48 y.o in 2010 didn't have a vote in the referendum.

Nuclear reactors can't be powered on and off year-by-year, and this was known in 1980 and was factored into the advisory referendum.

As such, this referendum is one of the few elections where the voters cannot be accused of voting selfishly in their own self-interest. We should listen to that type of result and learn from it.

That was such an insane referendum. There were 3 options, and all of them were "discontinue nuclear power". The only question was about how quickly to do it.

Reading about the actual moment they transitioned from left-hand driving to right-hand driving is also quite entertaining:

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

Democracy!

Interesting ideas. The cart driver sitting on the leftmost rear horse as a reason for driving on the right I can buy. However, I have a harder time with the idea that "feudal, violent societies" preferred to walk on the left in order to maintain the best position for using a sword against an oncoming opponent. The author doesn't locate this observation in time, other than to mention "feudal," but I don't believe that a large enough percentage of the people using the roads, at any time, carried swords for this to be a determining factor in forming the custom.

I agree. The author does bring up a more general explanation, though, which I have heard before - about right-handers preferring to mount or dismount a horse on the left side, and it being safer to do this on the shoulder rather than the center of the road.

Right, but the percentage of horse-riders carrying a sword was probably larger.

>> Right, but the percentage of horse-riders carrying a sword was probably larger.

I would tend to grant that point even without study, however swords were rare and expensive. The author would have to be more specific about the period, but I remain skeptical of his theory.

I've heard that theory before, but I've not seen any evidence for it, and it seems directly contradicted by this quote from Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (early 1700s):

"He related to me the following minute anecdote of this period: 'In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. NOW it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute.'"

The 'mount a horse on the left' argument seemed far stronger.

This kind of sword-handedness argument reminds me of a similar argument for deciding the directionality of spiral staircases:

  > Spiral staircases were a clever defence in medieval
  > castles. They were almost always built with the spiral
  > in the same direction (clockwise, when looking up from
  > the bottom) so that the defending swordsman, who would
  > either be coming down the stairs or backing up in
  > reverse, could freely swing his sword. Conversely, the
  > attacking swordsman (ascending the stairs) would have
  > his swing blocked by the wall.
  > This, of course, assumed that both attacker an defender
  > were right-handed, which most were.

http://www.thejanuarist.com/clan-kerr-and-the-legend-of-the-...

(there's a little more discussion there about left-handed swordsmen and left-handed spiral staircases!)

Right, but it's worth noting that's the opposite situation from road customs: it's much more believable because a significant portion of people traversing spiral staircases in castles were carrying swords.

EDIT: Having now read your linked article, I'll add that the spiral staircase story is more believable due to primary sources. :)

Keeping to the right is a deferral that visitors to the UK can find confusing on occassion. Visitors can find it odd that while keeping to the left on roadways, the right is used when on foot and in need of order of movement. On tube escalators for example, where allowing overtaking on the left is giving the right of way. The deferrers right is against the wall. Thus we play to their strengths, and contain ours as a courtesy.

Surely standing on the right is to facilitate the right hand holding the hand grip, which corresponds to the article's suggestion that keeping to the left facilitates the right hand (to draw a sword/mount a horse).

Well maybe but we always favour the right. It isn't really our right hand we are favouring but the others to our lefts right. In that lies the deferral. Standing still on the right provides a courtesy to the freedom of right handedness to the left. Those of age carrying heavy shopping can stall the left side but have use of their stronger side to manage. Those with heavy luggage can lift with the right while steadying themselves with the left railing. Those who are quick don't need either side except for balance and the left side is good enough for that. It seems like the most sensible thing to do. On the one hand the weakest have the benefit on the right, and on the other the strongest or in need of it have the left.

I remember in my teens in the early 80’s visiting the USA. Having come from the left driving country which is the source of iocane powder, I was quite startled when the taxi shot out into the middle of the intersection to do a left hand turn instead of hugging the curb.

The linked[1] trivia article was quite interesting as well. Loved this bit: A newspaper story on April Fool’s Day suggested that, to further European integration, the UK was to convert to driving on the right. However, owing to the huge amount of work this conversion would cause, it would be phased in: for the first six months the regulation would only apply to buses and taxis.

The mention of locations of turn signal levers also reminded me of the time I drove a car which was opposite of what I am use to. Every time I went around a corner I would switch the window wipers on.

[1] http://www.worldstandards.eu/cars/trivia-about-driving-left/

When I drove in UK, the hardest part was making a uturn. My brain is wired too much to following the right side.

I remeber the same joke being told (by Norwegians) about the Swedish change

On the border there had been country roads that crossed back and forth across the border .....

And of course there's the issue of driving from Hong Kong to China

http://www.fastcompany.com/1660258/ingenious-flipper-bridge-...

The joke is also told in Canada about Newfoundland changing.

Both London and Hong Kong have many curb signs everywhere warning tourists to look right for cars.

Although Winston Churchill fought on the NW Frontier and at the battle of Omdurman, became a prisoner in the Boer War, commanded a battalion in the trenches of WWI, and took many international trips during WWII ...

http://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/64331767768/historic...

his closest brush with death came in New York in 1931, when he stepped out into traffic looking the wrong way, and was hit by a taxi ...

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/fin...

I'm about to begin a 2-year circumnavigation of Africa - I look forward to the border crossings where swapping sides of the road is required - I'm told they're quite interesting.

There is a nifty double roundabout between Brazil and Guyana where you enter it one side of the road and when you exit you're on the other side of the road.

Wow! I couldn't find an image that seemed to be from there, but when I was looking for it, I found someone's blog with several impressive examples [0]. I really liked the aerial photos of some of the intersections.

0: http://basementgeographer.com/crossing-from-right-hand-drive...

Egyptians 2600 years ago circumnavigated Africa in 2.5 years. I guess technology has not improved much over time ;-)

I'm in no hurry.

I spent 2 years on the Pan-American from Alaska to Argentina because I wanted to. There is no rush.

Hey just wondering (completely off topic) How much money do you need to have for this sort of travel.

I spent $27k total in 2 years driing 40k miles from Alaska to Argentina [1]

I expect Africa to push closer to $20k/year.

If you're interested in this kind of travel, checkout http://wikioverland.org - it contains all the logistical information you need to make a trip like this. (it's packed for the Pan-American right now, and soon to be loaded with Africa too)

[1] Full breakdown: http://theroadchoseme.com/the-price-of-adventure

"In the past, almost everybody travelled on the left side of the road because that was the most sensible option for feudal, violent societies... Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse"

I think this still applies today: the majority of people are right eye dominant and it makes sense having the dominant eye closer to the oncoming traffic, and the majority of people will find it easier to mount bicycles and motorcycles from the side of the road rather than the centre of the road. I wonder if there are any statistics on the safety implications of switching to driving on the right.

> the majority of people are right eye dominant

interesting, I did not know that. Wikipedia states 33%left, 66% right, and the balance having no difference. This might be part of the evolution of vision in humans. The brain takes inputs from both eyes and compiles them into your vision field, maybe there is an evolutionary reason that a strong and weak pair produce better results.

> I wonder if there are any statistics on the safety implications of switching to driving on the right.

I don't think there is any reasonable data for this. Driving in England and America likely can not be compared directly as the roads, driving test, culture and vehicle setup are different. Also, an individual who immigrates will likely be at higher risk for causing accidents as the entire system is foreign and they have been conditioned using a different one.

> maybe there is an evolutionary reason that a strong and weak pair produce better results.

It makes sense for some things. Perhaps the human vision system uses one eye to provide certain hints about precise alignment, in the same way that you close one eye when aiming a gun because you need to align the sights.

On the other hand, by the same argument, why not have that slightly improved acuity applied to pedestrians, cyclists, and road signs, all of which are on the right when driving on the right side of the road?

I regularly drive on both sides. The only difference I find is that the order of the pedals in a manual car makes less sense for left-hand drive. In right-hand drive you can put your left (gear) foot to the side and your right (throttle) foot locked against the side, which is more comfortable than putting your left foot underneath and keeping your right foot up.

The differences in priority rules tick me off way more than the side of the road.

I have both LHD and RHD cars. I would say the placement of the pedals in relations to the footwell is something that varies a lot depending on the manufacturer and vehicle rather than 'sidedness'.

A lot of people say changing gear with their right hand feels more natural. To be honest I don't think there is a lot of difference. If you're a competent driver the position in the he car shouldn't make for much difference.

Growing up in Australia, and being left-handed, I thought changing gears with my left hand was completely natural. Now, after several years living and driving in continental Europe, I still find it slightly uncomfortable changing gears with my right hand, especially if in a hurry to do so.

However, the oddest thing is that when returning to Australia I now find something like 90% of cars (excluding 4WDs) are automatic, so no changing of gears. While in Europe, the majority of cars are still manual.

I do often turn on the windscreen wipers, when I mean to use the indicator, regardless of which country I'm in.

Many moons ago on holiday with my folks on Barbados in the Caribbean a local rental outfit had a collection of old Oz MiniMokes available. Planning on a month's trip to Kiwiland the following October and wanting to drive a manual there, I decided to tool around the Island in a beat-up RHD Moke. Of course pedal configuration was the same but a mirror-image of gear selection was expected. Wrong. It was simply a task of envisioning the shifter in space and changing gears in the normal manner using the left instead of the right hand. But turning on the wipers when you wanted to signal a turn always takes some getting used to. And roundabouts (circles) or wide turns aren't problematic if you just simulate behavior in your head, remembering where you are, before executing your moves. Personally, I still find this fun.

Yes, if you have developed a 'relative' position patten in your head, it takes a while to adjust.

The secret is to have an absolute position pattern in your head - you know that first gear is up and to the left - and your brain is able to operate your hands accordingly. Same as how you learn where the cupboards are in a kitchen and can open them no matter where you are standing - you have an absolute mental map of the kitchen.

It's probably because driving is a stationary activity that the brain develops a relative map (move right hand this direction) rather an absolute (first gear is over there)

I think you would find 90% of 4wds are automatic now as well.

Modern autos are actually more efficient than manuals, and easier to drive. The market has spoken.

The wiper stalk position varies depending on the car. As I pretty much only drive European cars it's always on the left and not an issue.

As for switching between LHD and RHD, you'll have a default. When stressed (heavy traffic, bad weather etc) your brain will be overloaded making decisions and you will use your default. If that doesn't match the car you're in, you'll try and change gear with the door handle. It's just mlike crossing the street, the way you first learnt is burnt in, and while you can override that, one day the basic programming comes back to the top and you look the wrong way and step out.

My short-lived experience driving on the right only gave me two problems, though I didn't drive a manual. Reversing up was weird, looking over the 'wrong' shoulder. But the real issue was having to be very conscious at turning into junctions, to make sure I was turning into the correct half of the road. Everything else just fell into place, for me.

"I regularly drive on both sides."

It must be quite a danger driving on both sides of the road, take care.

When I first drove in the UK, I was surprised how natural driving on the left side was. I was expecting it to be a huge problem, but it took me only half an hour in real traffic to get used to it. The only problem I had was that you can't shift gears and control the left/right signals at the same time. Normally, I can turn the signal on with my right hand and switch gears with the left hand, so it's not an issue. When driving in the UK, I needed to signal turns in advance, but that's probably a good thing.

No stats that I'm aware of. My observation is that people generally imagine disaster scenarios that do not come to pass when it comes to large traffic changes. Two short anecdotes to support the observation.

1) My wife and I visited Ireland for a vacation a few years back. Neither she nor I had driven on the left side previously. We drove around the southwest of Ireland for a week and a half w/o incident. Driving on the left side wasn't really a big issue. Pulling away from the curb was the biggest challenge, but it became "natural" after a day or so.

It was much more difficult navigating very narrow roads with (it seemed) mere inches from a stone wall on the left and oncoming traffic on the right.

Our situation was helped quite a bit by our familiarity with driving standard and familiarity with circulars (rotaries). Either of those factors would have made the situation much more difficult if we weren't.

2) Two years ago, several key roads in downtown Providence, RI (a state in the US) were switched from one to two-way. Everyone predicted a large increase in accidents. I'm unaware of any increase in accidents to date. Our largest traffic problems continue to be caused by road construction sites with poor signs, RI's overall inability to communicate effectively with signs, and college students from non-urban areas who walk into the street w/o looking and under the assumption that cars will just stop.

Despite my skepticism of a switch to right side driving being a big issue, I fear that we won't see it any sooner than we will see the US finally switch to the metric system.

There are may articles summarized historical reasons, however I haven't seen reason why in France cars drive on right, while trains on left. Another question which still puzzles me after all my trips to UK, London in particular, should pedestrians on pavement walk on left or right? My eyes tells me the most travel on right, but not always. Some underground station signs say keep left.

It is usually said that the English built the first railways in France and that they built them so that trains drive left, out of habit.

At the time of construction it was one track and stayed like that for a long time. Same true for other East European countries I lived in - English tech one track. Upgrade to two tracks happens much-much latter. Even France, Alsace trains travel on right side!

Be careful on the escalators in the Tube. You are instructed to keep right if you wish to stand, so that the left side is clear for people to walk if they are in a hurry.

In general I have never noticed a preference for which side to walk on on a pathway, in the UK or anywhere else. People tend to stick with the peleton.

Stay on right, pass on left is true in many locations in the world for escalators. In some countries there is even automated voice reminder for that. However my personal anecdotal evidence shows that in Germany/Poland/US people are bound to walk on the right side mostly, while in London it's more chaotic, but still more on right.

You stand on the left in escalators in Australia, which was confusing at first, as you stand on the right in escalators in the UK, even though both countries are left-hand-drive.

In continental Europe people prefer to walk on the right side. Only tourists from Japan insist on the left side.

Portuguese trains also ride on the left hand side.

The British Highway Code states for pedestrians:

If there is no pavement, keep to the right-hand side of the road so that you can see oncoming traffic.

(http://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/rules-for-pedestrians---gener...)

For the Americans, pavement in British English means sidewalk :)

After learning this (in school road safety lessons I think?) in general I always assumed you should walk on the right as a pedestrian for consistency (even though the highway code doesn't contain any rules for sidewalks) but it's not universally observed, particularly in London where there are so many foreign tourists.

In Sweden, where people drive on the right, I have have heard that you should walk on the left side of the road if there is no sidewalk. But, when on a sidewalk or footpath people will keep to the right.

Another curiosity with Sweden is that priority to the right has been codified in law since the switch to right-hand traffic, but has never actually been practised by motorists. Instead they have a bunch of unwieldy and dangerous ad hoc rules, such as priority-to-the-crossbar-in-T-intersections and priority-to-the-slightly-larger-road-in-4-way-intersections.

Also confusingly, when Swedes are about to make a left turn they keep to the far right instead of the more logical left, and vice versa.

Obviously, if the road you are coming on is perpendicular to another and dead-ends (what I assume you mean by a T-intersection), then you should have a stop sign, and the road that isn't dead-ending shouldn't have any stop-signs.

With the four-way you describe, I would usually expect to see a single light, with it blinking yellow on the primary route, and blinky red on the secondary road.

T-junctions in Sweden often have a stop or yield sign, but not always. When they don't drivers on the through road should yield to cars turning in from the right, but in practice the rarely do. Stop lights are not common in smaller, low traffic junctions.

Something felt off the first time I took the subway in Stockholm. It took me a minute to realize that the train was running the other direction, obviously a relic nobody bothered to change that has become codified in modern-day transportation law.

You have the same in Germany, but obviously for the left-hand side.

That said, people do tend to walk on the right-hand side as far as I can tell, following the traffic. So, no consistency. The 'no pavement' is already exceptional. Walking on the other side of the road in that case is just part of that experience.. :)

"in general I always assumed you should walk on the right as a pedestrian for consistency"

You walk facing traffic not for consistency, but so that you can see what's trying to hit you. It doesn't apply so much for pavement/sidewalk, but you'll certainly live longer when there's no clearly separated area for peds.

This article from BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28352045 says "Telling people how to walk is simply not British" and I can anecdotally confirm there is no observed rule in London. A bloke once told me somewhat angrily "on the left in England mate", but he must be telling that to hundreds of English people daily.

Signs in corridors in stations can say either "keep left" or "keep right" depending on what's more convenient for corridor layout. Escalators are always stand right, walk left.

(Out of interest and because the article also mentions it, there is no concept of jaywalking in England and I've read that it is not in any way illegal for pedestrians to cross against a red light. However drivers rarely defer to pedestrians even at marked crossings.)

(Out of further interest, in Paris the suburban trains use left-hand running like the national network, but the metro runs on the right.)

What I have been told years ago, no source though, is that trains were invented and first implemented in the UK while metro was first implemented by French people.

> is that trains were invented and first implemented in the UK while metro was first implemented by French people.

As with any invention, attribution to any one person or even nation is difficult; the UK did have the first machine-powered rail trains and the first intercity machine-powered passenger rail service (Liverpool and Manchester Railway).

The metro looks to be British as well, though: the Metropolitan Railway, now part of London Underground, opened in 1863, and John Fowler was its chief engineer. The first electric-powered underground railway was the City and South London Railway, opened in 1890, James Henry Greathead as its chief engineer. (Budapest metro opening in 1896, Paris metro opening in 1900.)

Seems like Timor-Leste (East Timor) may have changed over more times than any other country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic

East Timor had traffic on the left until 1928, when it changed to the right at the same time as its colonial power, Portugal. During Japanese occupation during World War II driving on the left was imposed, and when the Portuguese returned it changed back to the right. Under Indonesian rule, East Timor changed back to driving on the left in 1976, and continued the practice under UN administration from 1999 and since independence in 2002.

Interesting to note that not all of the USA drives on the right. In the US Virgin Islands people still drive on the left side of the road, but mostly with cars made for driving on the right side.

The Virgin Islands were originally Danish, I believe, and purchased after the advent of the automobile.

Australia is planning to move from left to right hand side starting in 2020 but it's a big change so the change will be phased in with trucks moving to the right in 2020 and cars in 2021.

How? Won't the cars and trucks run into each other?

I presume this is a joke. Not sure what the point is though.

Bottomline, there is no sense in driving on the left today, but it did hundreds of years ago. Driving on the left (on those countries who do) has simply stuck out of habit, customs, rules, or choice. The "there is a perfectly good reason" should read, "there was a perfectly good reason."

Bottomline, there is no sense in driving on the right today, but it did hundreds of years ago. Driving on the right (on those countries who do) has simply stuck out of habit, customs, rules, or choice. The "there is a perfectly good reason" should read, "there was a perfectly good reason."

isnt driving on the left (with the driver sitting on the right) the better way of driving ? because the hand that you use to change the stickshift/gear.. or change the radio ... or pick your coffee is the left hand. Which for most of the population is their weaker hand ?

Actually isn't it the stronger arm, while your dominant hand has finer motor control? Which means you want you left hand to control the left/right of the steering wheel and the right hand to fiddle with the smaller knobs and buttons.

this is actually news to me. the way it was explained to me (and I'm not an expert) is that you want your left brain on the steering wheel ... which means the right hand.

But most right handed people control the steering wheel better with their right hand than their left.

"In the late 1700s, however, teamsters in France and the United States began hauling farm products in big wagons pulled by several pairs of horses."

I am interested about this statement and why it didn't happen in the UK which was also majorly agricultural in the same period.

Perhaps the UK's extensive canal network? Hmm, what was/is the convention for passing narrowboats? I presume it follows the road rule in all countries?

It doesn't in the UK. Canal and River Trust instructs to keep to the right:

"On all waterways, the rule of the road is to drive on the right. ... When you do meet an approaching boat, keep to the right and pass ‘port-to-port’ (the left side of your boat passes the left side of the approaching boat)."

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/boating/navigating-the-waterw...

No, in the UK you keep right when passing another craft unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise depending on the size and manoeuvrability of each craft, local conditions (bends, bridges, etc.), degree of experience of the helmsman. The motor controls are typically on the left side of the boat, and a seat for the helmsman if there is one would usually be on the left.

I would guess, on the US side, that it was because there was not a centuries-old existing road system. There weren't much in the way of roads in America prior to 1800 - transport by ship or river was the overwhelming norm.