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As I was driving to work this morning, for whatever reason, I began to think about our traffic systems … specifically about the right-hand and left-hand drive systems.

At first, the differences of these systems only occurred to me regarding modern automobile traffic and what the motivations might have been for the two systems. Does it have anything to do with the specific environments within which automobiles were developed? Does it have anything to do with most people being right-handed? Might it have anything to do with individual vs. group focus in different societies? Many potential scenarios run through my imagination.

I began researching the issue on the web and discovered that the origins of these systems began as far back as Roman times.

It appears that traveling on the left-hand side of the road out-dates traveling on the right-hand side by several hundred years, although nowadays right-hand drive systems outnumber left-hand drive by more than 2-to-1.

Several hundred years ago, the logic of traveling on the left side of the road was pretty clear. Most people are right-handed and by traveling on the left side of the road, it was easier to great people traveling in the opposite direction. Additionally, it was easier for a person to reach and wield his sword should there be a confrontation.

Other things that made travel on the left side of the road logical was that a person driving a wagon or coach, also being mostly frequently right-handed, could hold the reigns in his left hand and utilize a coach whip with his right hand without obstruction while sitting on the right side of the coach or wagon and having a clear view of the road ahead.

Around the 1700’s, in America and France, teamsters began using gigantic horse-drawn freight wagons to transport goods. There were no driver’s seats on these wagons, so the driver would sit on the back of the left-rear horse and drive the team with a whip in his right hand. Keep in mind that these wagons were very large and wide. So, the driver preferred for oncoming traffic to pass him on the left where he could be sure to keep his wagon’s wheels clear of the wheels of other wagon’s wheels as they passed.

Interestingly, there were some arbitrary influences for traveling on the left side of the road such as shear exertion of will and defiance. Two examples of this are the emperor Napoleon, who mandated keep-right traffic laws in all countries occupied by his armies and the early United States which, it is speculated, declared that it’s armies should travel in the right side of the road in defiance of the British during the Revolutionary War. These two instances are straight-forward enough for foot traffic but don’t really apply to and benefit vehicular traffic.

Early automobiles often had the steering wheel in the middle of the car. Motivations for the eventual placement of the driver’s seat on the left or right side of the car were apparently directly related to the left-side or right-side driving custom of the country in which a car was manufactured.

The most influential factor for placement of the driver’s seat is for maximum visibility of the road and oncoming traffic. So, in those countries with left-side traffic rules (mostly Britain and it’s colonies and territories), the driver’s seat was placed on the right side of the car and the car traveled on the left side of the road. In most other countries, where right-side traffic rules had been established, the driver’s seat was placed on the left side of the car and the car traveled on the right side of the road.

Wikipedia sites an interesting example of a safety study performed in 1969 that showed left-side traffic systems to be statistically safer due to human biological factors.

Many countries have switched from left-hand drive systems to right-hand drive systems in the last century due to traffic-law compatibility issues with neighboring countries and manufacturing cost and complications with having to build two different sets of cars for domestic use and export.

In my brief survey of the facts of this curiosity, I didn’t find anything that implied more over-arching sociological factors in the evolution of these systems. I was really hoping to find something implying that the individual vs. group focus of different societies played a part. But, aside from a couple instances of doing it for spite, it looks like the use of these systems was pretty well driven by biology and logic alone.

For more detail and further information, check out the resources below and/or Google the term, ” origins driving on left or right side of road ”

Resources:
www.team-bhp.com
www.wikipedia.com
users.telenet.be

Tags: automobile traffic, automobiles, coach, confrontation, environments, freight wagons, group focus, hundred years, imagination, left hand drive, left hand side, logic, motivations, origins, roman times, scenarios, sword, teamsters, traffic systems, whip

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Fun and Recreation, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.