Why Do We Drive 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.’

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. TrafficSource: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/