Friday September 29, 2006
Dear Yahoo!:
Why do some countries drive on the right side of the road and others the left?
Crash T. Dummy
Dear Crash:
A vacation to Great Britain involves good theater, interesting “food,” and at least one heart attack due to the whole “driving on the wrong side of the road” thing. So, why do Great Britain, Japan, India, and many others drive on one side when most countries do the opposite? Read on for an abbreviated explanation…
We say “abbreviated” because the actual history of this phenomenon is long enough to fill a graduate thesis. According to this page on World Standards, nearly all societies used to travel on the left side of the road. This made sense because life was a lot more violent back then. “Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent.” Again, there are others reasons (including the different types of animal-drawn wagons), but near as we can tell, this is the main one. Continue reading »