DUIDriving on the Right Side of the Road
According to Guinness: The Book of Answers:
'Of the 221 separately administered countries and territories in the world, 58 drive on the left and 163 on the right. In Britain it is believed that left hand driving is a legacy from the preference of passing an approaching horseman or carriage right side to right side to facilitate right armed defence against sudden attack. On the Continent postillions were mounted on the rearmost left horse in a team and thus preferred to pass left side to left side. While some countries have transferred from left to right, the only case recorded of a transfer from right to left is in Okinawa on 30 July 1978.'
Notes from listeners
People in much of the Far East pass each other by stepping to the left, and it has nothing to do with swords or Romans - or even cars or chariots. They do it for religious reasons. The right side of the body is the clean side and the left side is the unclean side. By moving to the left when you meet someone coming the other way you present your right side to them. In Nepal, for example, it is good manners even to walk backwards past a prayer wall to keep your right side towards it if there is no way to walk by it on the other side. The clean/unclean idea about the sides of the body is to be found very widely in different cultures, not just in the Far East. The Romans have given us the word 'sinister' from their word for 'left', and we ourselves associate 'right' with things that are good and correct. Surely, the Romans went on the left as a matter of religious etiquette.
Just consider a single horse rider and their method of mounting their steed. The great majority of riders mount a horse by putting their left foot on the stirrup and swinging the other leg over. (If you don't ride a horse, think of getting on a bike!) If mounting from a bank at the side of a lane or from a mounting block the rider will then find themselves facing down the road on the left-hand side of the highway (however narrow). What more natural than to ride off on the left and to negotiate oncoming traffic by keeping to the left?
America: by the time Europeans went there in numbers they defended themselves with firearms rather than swords, and it was probably more important to pass a stranger on horseback left side to left side. This made it easier to turn in the saddle and cover your back. It also helped the person riding 'shotgun' on the stagecoach. The matter was eventually resolved by Henry Ford. His ideas of mass production deemed that not only was the famous Model T Ford to be available only in black, but it was only to have the steering-wheel on the left.
It seems likely that the reason for the placing of the steering-wheel on the right side of the car was for the purposes of competition. Almost all motor racing circuits are driven clockwise; thus the driver is placed on the inside of the track for most of the time. In Italy, even after the advent of driving on the right-hand side of the road, the majority of sports cars were built with their steering-wheel on the right, in case they were to be used in competition.
The reason Napoleon decreed that his troops should march on the right-hand side of the road was as follows. During the Napoleonic period vast numbers of troops were moving around Europe. When two columns passed each other on the narrow roads of the time, with their muskets or pikes slung over their right shoulders, these weapons would crash into each other and cause disruption and delay. The obvious solution was to make the troops march on the right-hand side of the road so that the weapons were slanted away from the approaching column.
Source: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
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Driving on the left is correct for right-handed people the great majority, here is why:
When changing gear in a UK car with the steering wheel on the right , this is of course correct in the UK etc for driving on the left--------your left hand changes gear and your right hand stays on the steering wheel, (this is safer for right handed people.)
The reverse is the case in countries where one must drive on the right.-- in other words if you live in the USA you hold the steering wheel with your left hand and change gear with your right hand because of course the steering wheel is on the left in the USA--------this is dangerous if you are right handed.
Bicycles: Bike riders are in real danger in countries where driving on the right is mandatory again assuming you are right handed----Try mounting a bike in the USA and you will find yourself in the stream of traffic when getting on the bike---- try it yourself---------: Mounting a bike in the UK is done from the sidewalk by right handed people who find it easier to put their right leg over the bike. , Much safer and this must have saved many lives.
Reversing up a steep drive: My drive in the UK is very steep----------when I reverse out I hold the steering wheel with my right hand and look over my left shoulder to the rear window. In a USA car you must hold the steering wheel with your left hand and look over your right shoulder to look out of the rear window.. So you must reverse with your left hand on the steering wheel.. Or stick your head out of the window if you want to use your right hand on the steering wheel. ---Dangerous for the 82% right handed majority.
Right handed people who are also "right eyed" have the traffic coming toward them on their right in left hand driving areas , which is the way "right eyed" people are able to react better. When overtaking on a right hand driving USA road the right eyed/handed driver looks in the mirror with the left eye and also views the oncoming traffic with the left eye. A change of gear is sometimes needed to overtake so he/she is driving left handed while changing gear with the right hand and looking in the mirror and oncoming traffic with the left eye. Of course the gear change should in theory be completed before pulling out but this in practice is not always the case. The prevalence of automatic gear change in the USA may not be just luxury after all but necessity
Perhaps a billion cyclists in right hand driving areas around the world are all risking their lives mounting their bike in traffic. Also In right hand driving areas a greater number of people reverse with their heads out of the window and hundreds of millions of right handed drivers hold the steering wheel at speed with their left hand. There are over 6 billion people in the world today and billions of people using road transport. Driving on the left is safer and provably safer for right handed drivers; however I concede that because over 60% of the world drives on the right there is no prospect of a global change to driving on the left.
Recent research shows 5 out of 6 people naturally use the right hand:
"A systematic study * of the distribution of manipulative skill has been carried out by Marian Annett and colleagues from the Department of Psychology at Leicester University. Annett and Kilshaw (1983) found that in a group of 1480 adolescents and adults, using a simple peg-moving task apparatus to assay hand skill, 82 % were more skilled with the right hand, 3% were equally skilled with each hand, and 15 % were more skilled with the left hand. When the disparity of skill between the two hands is plotted as a histogram, it becomes apparent that skill asymmetry is normally distributed: there is no clear separation into the two conventional handedness groups"
"A natural preference for the left hand in skilled tasks develops in as many as one individual in six. " Meaning of course that 5 out of 6 naturally use the right hand. (* Reproduced with permission of Leicester University UK ).