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Comment by betaby | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.)

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!

Portuguese trains also ride on the left hand side.

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