Wrong side?
ROBERT CLEMENTS
Have just returned from the US where everybody drives on the wrong side of the road, and I thought Id try and convince them that the right side was the wrong side, so here goes:
Long, long, ago, almost everybody traveled on the left side of the road since swordsmen preferred to keep to that side in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Moreover, it reduced the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people.
Also a right-handed person found it easier to mount a horse from the left side when wearing a sword (which was worn on the left). It was also safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so when one mounted on the left, then the horse had to be ridden on the left side of the road! So logically the left side became the convenient side to travel.
So how did Europe and America become right?
It was a revolution that did it: The French Revolution of 1789 gave a huge impetus to right-hand travel in Europe. Before the Revolution, the aristocracy traveled on the left of the road, forcing the peasants to walk on the right, but after the storming of the French Bastille and the subsequent events, aristocrats preferred to keep a low profile and joined the peasants on the right. And soon an official keep-right rule was introduced in Paris in 1794, more or less parallel to Denmark, where driving on the right had been made compulsory in 1793.
And how about the USA, wasnt it a British colony? How did they switch to the right? Well, in the early years of English colonisation of North America, English driving customs were followed and the colonies drove on the left but after gaining independence from England, they were anxious to cast off all remaining links with their British colonial past and gradually changed to right-hand driving. The first law requiring drivers to keep right was passed in Pennsylvania in 1792, and similar laws were passed in New York in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813.
Presently the trend among most countries has been toward driving on the right, but Britain has done its best to stave off this global idea. With the expansion of travel and road building in the 1800s, traffic regulations were made in every country. Left-hand driving was made mandatory in Britain in 1835 and countries like
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh which were part of the British Empire followed suit, which is why to this very day, we, Australasia and the former British colonies in Africa drive left!
Today, around four million people drive on the right side of the road and the other two million on the left. Its not very easy to switch from left to right or right to left when going abroad, but as long as this strange pattern remains well have to and theyll have to and world today drives both left and right.
Its a strange world we live in..!
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