Why....

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Why have european (excluding UK) and american cars wheel on the left side, and japanese and UK cars have them on the right side? Is there any particular or rational reason for this? Because I don't know. And I've been wondering. If anyone has any knowledge about the matter, I would be pleased to hear it.
 
Maybe it's because in Japan and the UK (among other countries) cars use the left lane, and in continental Europe and the US the right lane?:p
 
What Civic_VTi said, and also you'll have some serious blindspot issues if you have RHD in right lanes, and vice versa.
 
Originally posted by Civic_VTi
Maybe it's because in Japan and the UK (among other countries) cars use the left lane, and in continental Europe and the US the right lane?:p
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Yes, but what I'd like to know is the reason for this, if there is any that makes sense.
 
Like I said, JoniK, you WILL have blind spot issues if things go reversed. Two very good examples are:

1) You are driving a LHD car. You are driving on a hill with a sharp left turn with infinite length with only one lane for each side. Let's say you're WRCing with some kid and you have to use the full lane. Now, the problem is, you cannot see oncoming cars fast enough from the other side of the lane because your field of vision is totally blocked by the frame between the side window and the front window. Just imagine, and once you realized it, you'll know that it'll be a nightmare without a co-driver with you. On a more normal situation, if there was some accident happening with no emergency lanes, you will not react fast enough for stopped cars and you can kiss your ass goodbye. :)

2) This is also LHD. In the US you can turn right on a red light because the lane is on the right. Proper clearing procedure is look left, right, and then left again. Now, if it's RHD, you will not see what's on the right. While chances are low, there will be cars using the wrong side of the road for whatever reason. But because you can't see anything on the right, for a 80 year old American lady this could create so much fear, she won't feel safe when she drives.

The 2nd one is a little bit extreme, but think of the first one thouroughly.
 
That's not what I mean. What I am trying to find the answer for, is the original reason for using different lanes in different countries. I realize that countries that use the left lane have cars that have the wheel on the right side and on some other countries it's vice versa. But where did the difference come from? This is my conclusion: The british thought, "hey, let's drive on the left side of the road. It's very cool!" And the continental europe thought: "Screw the brits. Driving on the right side of the road is much more cool." And that's where the difference came from.
 
I believe it has to be a cognitive issue, how the brain best can handle information like most people is right-handed, it's easier for most if the traffic runs on right lanes.

In sweden it was left-driving until late 60's i think and it was a referendum where the left side won with like 80-20 and still the government decided to switch to right driving. Why was that the gov totally ran over the peoples opinion? I'll do some research..
 
All I could find was that there were 2 main reasons for the switch from left to right in sw.

1. Global research showed that countries with right driving on the road had lower accident freq. than left countries.

2. Trend, a lot of other countries was changing to right driving in that time.
 
In Britain it is RHD because of tradition.

In medieval times, people use to walk on the left hand side because they handle their weapons with their right hands.

About the LHD thing, I'am not very sure.
 
Originally posted by TsLeng
In medieval times, people use to walk on the left hand side because they handle their weapons with their right hands.
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Indeed, you are correct.

The reason all those other places drive on the right is because of Napolean. The short, ill-tempered Frenchman was a leftie and made everyone else march on the right-hand side of the road.

So it's not Britain/Japan/a few other places that are the odd ones. It's everywhere that drives on the right - you're doing so because of a Frenchman, 2 centuries ago.


Interestingly, on the same subject, the Space Shuttle's dimensions directly correlate to a horses' arse. Strange but true.
 
Originally posted by Famine
Interestingly, on the same subject, the Space Shuttle's dimensions directly correlate to a horses' arse. Strange but true.
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I forget how all the spacifics go, but this was one of the most interesting things I've heard. Can you round up the details?
 
The reason the US goes on the right isn't because of Napoleon, it's because of a particular horse-carriage set-up popular in the 1700s that required the driver to sit on the left, causing driving on the right.
 
Originally posted by LoudMusic
I forget how all the spacifics go, but this was one of the most interesting things I've heard. Can you round up the details?
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Can't remember half of it myself.

Edit: Scratch that... :D

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels and wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for, or by Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder which horse's rear came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now, the twist to the story ... There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' arses.

When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses behinds.

So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined by the width of a horse's arse!
 
IMO, its just how the country planned its roads and driving laws in the beggining, so it just stuck...
 
I once asked myself this question as well. The best answer that I could come up with is that people overseas always have to do the complete opposite as everyone in the USA because they don't like us. :odd:
 
I wanna be Famine when I grow up! :D
 
So you're saying that the boosters can't be any wider than about 5 feet because they have to take them by train?

Planes people?
 
This NASA website claims that their solid rocket boosters are 3.7 meters, or a bit over 12 feet wide. What does that have to do with the 4' 8.5" railway width?
 
Originally posted by retsmah
This NASA website claims that their solid rocket boosters are 3.7 meters, or a bit over 12 feet wide. What does that have to do with the 4' 8.5" railway width?
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The tunnels!! The narrowest space in which the train must pass is the widest the booster rockets can be. And actually they don't ship them as an assembled piece. I would believe they ship them cut (pie ways) in fourths cutting the minimum width to roughly 6 feet wide, just over the width of the rails, which is about the width of your average flatbed rail car.
 
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