Why do most foreign countries drive on the opposite sid of the road?

Question

And where did they adopt or derive it from?

Answer 1

Although most of the world population drive from the right, it is not fair to consider left side of the road just as opposite side. You should know that originally all the roads in the world are driven from left side. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_on_the_left_side_of_the_road#_note-0)

Answer 2

Thats a very good question. I've often wondered why foreign countries like the USA and Canada drive on the opposite side.

Answer 3

From the following, it canbe seen that this is decided mostly on the practices followed in different countries because of the rulers and due to neighbouring countries and due to political reasons:-

About 34% of the world by population drives on the left, and 66% keeps right. By roadway distances, about 28% drive on the left, and 72% on the right,[1] even though orignally all traffic drove on the left worldwide.
Archaeologists have unearthed a clue about ancient driving habits. In 1998 they found a well-preserved track leading to a Roman quarry near Swindon, England. the Romans drove on the left.
In fact, some believe that ancient travelers on horseback generally rode on the left side of the road. As more people are right-handed, horsemen would thus be able to hold the reins with their left hands and keep their right hands free—to offer in friendship to passing riders or to defend themselves with swords, if necessary. This also explains why men's jackets and shirts have the buttons on the right. It was important to be able to reach a weapon inside a cloak, so for a right-handed person, the cloak had the left flap over the right flap and the right hand could easily reach in and grab the weapon.

In the late 1700’s, a shift from left to right took place in countries such as the United States, when teamsters started using large freight wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. The wagons had no driver’s seat, so the driver sat on the left rear horse and held his whip in his right hand. Seated on the left, the driver naturally preferred that other wagons pass him on the left so that he could be sure to keep clear of the wheels of oncoming wagons. He did that by driving on the right side of the road.

The British, however, kept to the left. They had smaller wagons, and the driver sat on the wagon, usually on the right side of the front seat.
On most early motor vehicles, the driving seat was positioned centrally. Some car manufacturers later chose to place it near the centre of the road to help drivers see oncoming traffic, while others chose to put the driver's seat on the kerb side so that the drivers could avoid damage from walls, hedges, gutters and other obstacles. Eventually the former idea prevailed.

Political events in France had a big effect on driving habits. Before the Revolution of 1789, the aristocracy drove its carriages along the left side of the roads, forcing the peasants to the other side. But once the Revolution started, these nobles desperately tried to hide their identity by joining the peasant travelers on the right. By 1794 the French government had introduced a keep-right rule in Paris, which later spread to other regions as the conquering armies of Napoléon I marched through much of continental Europe. It is not surprising that Napoléon favored keeping to the right. One reference work explains that because he was left-handed, “his armies had to march on the right so he could keep his sword arm between him and any opponent.”

The most common reason for countries to switch to driving on the right is for conformity with neighbours, as it increases the safety of cross-border traffic. For example, former British colonies in Africa, such as Gambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana, have all changed from left- to right-hand traffic, as they all share borders with former French colonies, which drive on the right.

Answer 4

they probably ask that about us....most places drive on the left(wrong) side of the road....but as we grew....the horse-drawn wagons made it easier to drive on the right then left....check out the wikipedia page

Answer 5

Their driving set up was put together by a left handed person.

Road markings or Why we drive on the Left

There have been many theories proposed to explain why we drive on the left hand side of the road, while in some other countries they drive on the right. Some say it goes back to coaching days, others insist it goes back a lot further than that. Here are some possible explanations.

I have just read of a recent dig in a Roman quarry that showed rut marks on the old Roman road surface, suggesting that the Romans drove on the left, just as the British and Australians do today.

It is my understanding that it was at Napoleon's instigation that driving on the right was enforced throughout Europe. Was there a logical reason for this at the time (or now) or is there no real benefit to either system?

In olden days the nobility would ride on the left so their sword hand, usually the right hand, would be on the same side as an oncoming horseman. Conversely, with armed nobility riding around, it made sense for peasants to walk on the right, facing the oncoming traffic.

In France after the revolution it was a bad idea to be mistaken for nobility, so everyone started to travel on the right. Napoleon carried this convention with him as he conquered large parts of Europe and built the first international road system since the Romans.

Riding on the left to present the dominant side for the sword hand made sense at that time, and most castles have clockwise spiral staircases to make it easier for a right-handed defender to fight off a right-hander below. However, I have visited castles where the spiral staircases are anticlockwise because the family that owned it were predominantly left-handed.

ANDY LAUDER Address supplied

One explanation has it that stagecoaches, whose drivers sat on the right so that they could keep their long whips (in their right hands) clear of the coach, passed each other driver-to-driver so that they could see their outside wheels and therefore get as close as possible to allow them to pass on narrow roads.

PHILIP HAZEL Cambridge, England

Napoleon switched the convention in Europe from driving on the left to driving on the right for a simple reason - he was left-handed. This meant he mounted and dismounted his horse on the right-hand side, which he naturally preferred to be at the road edge.

HENRY DEWING Zirndorf, Germany

Once riding on the left had been established for horsemen, coachmen driving a team of horses found their best position was to be seated on the right with an unobstructed view of any riders or coaches approaching on their right. This convention was maintained for a considerable time.

Then Napoleon, while waging war on the rest of Europe, suddenly had to move huge conscript armies, along with their baggage and artillery trains, often with between 6 and 12 horses which were attached to their carriages in teams with two or more horses side-by-side.

Because horses are usually mounted from the left, the French soldier mounted on the near or left-hand leading horse. This meant there was an empty horse to the right of him blocking his view of the centre of the road. Therefore he found it easier to cope with oncoming traffic if he drove to the right of the centre line. After this change, civilian French coachmen were required to switch seating positions and drive on the right side as well.

LOU CAMERON New York, USA

My theory is that, on the continent postillions were more commonly used with carriages and in the UK, coachmen. Because most people are right-handed, coachmen would drive with the whip in the right hand and so would pass right-hand to right-hand - driving on the left. Similarly, the postillion (as I understand it) uses a stick in his right hand and rides the left-hand horse, so postillions would pass left side to left side, driving on the right of the road. No-one has given me any feedback on this idea yet. Perhaps someone can?

FIONA POWELL, UK

The best answer I have ever seen to this question is the article by Mick Hamer entitled "Left is right on the road" (see below). According to the excellent history given in that article, it was Robespierre who codified the switch to the lowly right side of the road after the French Revolution, and Napoleon and Hitler who made the rest of continental Europe follow suit.

KENNETH WATKINS Campeaux, France

Left Is Right on the Road
by Mick Hamer

The traffic in most countries travels on the right-hand side of the road. You can blame the French for this illogical behaviour.

The custom of driving on the left of the road probably dates back to prehistory. It was an early road safety measure. In the days when the chief danger on the roads was a mugging, careful travellers passed oncoming strangers sword arm to sword arm. A stylised example of this custom was the joust where knights charged one another holding a lance on their right. Left-handed knights had a short life expectancy.

The custom of driving on the right dates from the French Revolution. Up to the end of the 18th century, the sans-culottes thought it safer to walk on the right and face the nobility in their oncoming carriages. Later, the aristos decided it was wisest to join the anonymity of the citoyens on the right.

It took the unlikely alliance of Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler to move most of the world permanently to the right. Of course, they had to overcome a keep-left rule that was doubtless well-established in ancient Rome. Congestion in that city forced strict traffic regulations. Wagons and chariots were banned during the day. Wheeled traffic in other parts of the Empire was banned at night to let citizens sleep - a forerunner of the present nocturnal ban on heavy lorries in London.

When Pope Boniface VIII enjoined pilgrims in 1300 to keep to the left, this rule of the road was already widely recognised. However, in England, the rule remained a matter of custom rather than regulation. The increase in horse traffic by the end of 18th century finally forced parliament to enshrine the keep-left rule in statute.

The traffic problem was always most acute in towns. London, for example, limited the number of hackney coaches in an attempt to keep down congestion on its roads. Even so, the number of coaches rose from 300 in 1639 to 1000 by 1771. There was a sharper increase in other horse-drawn traffic, which was not restricted by law. Parliament passed a law in 1756 forcing traffic to keep to the left on London Bridge. It extended the rule in 1772 to towns in Scotland. The penalty for disobeying the law was 20 shillings (£1).

The General Highways Act of 1773 did not apply the keep-left rule to England. The custom was already established. In the 18th century stage coaches left London form most parts of the country but their precise routes were quite flexible. Drivers simply chose the firmest ground and it was not uncommon for roads to be 100 yards wide. As landowners enclosed more and more fields, they narrowed the roads dramatically and increased the importance of agreeing on which side to pass to avoid accidents. Contemporary prints show that the custom was for stage coaches to keep to the left. This evidence must be treated with some respect because not every lithographer knew how to reverse images for printing.

The keep-left rule did not become law in Britain until 1835, although local regulations existed. The Highways Bill was introduced in four successive sessions of parliament before finally becoming law. As ever, the press could be relied upon to keep its finger on the pulse of the nation (and its elbow on the bar of the four-ale saloon). One journalist reported: " A vast number of clauses, which extended to 113, were agreed to, but from the rapid manner and the low tone in which they were discussed across the table it was quite impossible to collect the nature of the objections... the house remained in committee nearly the whole night."

Meanwhile the French Revolution was setting off on a dramatically different course. Keeping left had only ever applied to driving or riding. People on foot kept to the right-hand side of the road and faced the oncoming traffic, a custom which persists today in Britain on country lanes without pavements. Indeed until the 1920s, horses were led on the right in Britain, on the principle that it was safer for those on foot to be able to see fast-approaching traffic (and if necessary take avoiding action) than to be run over from behind.

There was an obvious class distinction in France between the left- and right-hand sides of the roads. The aristocrats drove in their carriages up the left hand side of the road, forcing the citizens over onto the right. Come the revolution in 1789, and the declaration of the "rights of man" in 1791, the aristocrats had a natural incentive to keep to the poor side of the road, to avoid drawing attention to themselves and a quick trip to la lanterne, the street lamps that made such handy gibbets. Robespierre codified the change and ordered that traffic in Paris should keep to the right. Robespierre was guillotined (without trial) on 10 Thermidor, in the second year of the revolutionary calendar (28 July 1794) but there is no record of whether his tumbril kept to the right or not. Napoleon established the change more firmly by ordering his military traffic to take the right side of the road.

The revolutionary wars and Napoleon's subsequent conquests spread the new rightism to the Low Countries, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. The states that had resisted Napoleon kept broadly left - Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and Portugal. Of these independent states, only Denmark converted to driving on the right (in 1793). This European division, between the left- and right-hand nations remained fixed for more than 100 years, until after the First World War.

Meanwhile, the habit of driving on the left spread to the United States. The link in the chain was General Lafayette, the French liberal reformer, who visited the US on several occasions and gave military help during the War of Independence. The first keep-right law in the US, passed in 1792, applied to the Pennsylvania turnpike, between Lancaster and Philadelphia. New York (in 1804) and New Jersey (in 1813) also enacted keep-right rules. However, Canada, which was still ruled by Britain, stayed mostly on the left-hand side of the road until 1920s.

Britain's imperial expansion spread the keep-left rule over every continent, so that the sun never set on the left-hand side of the road. The Indian Empire, Australasia and the African colonies all adopted the keep-left rule-with the exception of Egypt. Egypt had been conquered by Napoleon before becoming a British dependency, and its traffic kept to the right.

Even Japan fell under British influence. In the 1850's British and American gunboat diplomacy forced the Japanese to open their ports to foreign traders. In 1859, Queen Victoria's man at the Japanese court, Sir Rutherford Alcock, persuaded the Japanese to impose a keep-left rule. In China the opium wars, and the consequent influence in Shanghai, also helped to form the Chinese decision to keep on the left. Most other European colonies followed the practise of their colonising power. Indonesia, for example, continues to follow the old Dutch habit of driving on the left, even thought the Netherlands switched to driving on the right after the establishment of the puppet Batavian Republic in 1795.

Although Russia switched to driving on the right in the last days of the Tsars, most countries stuck to their traditional sides of the road, even after the First World War. The break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire caused no change; Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary continued to drive on the left. Portugal changed to the right in the 1920s.

Austria itself was something of a curiosity. Half the country drove on the left and half on the right. The dividing line was precisely the area affected by Napoleon's conquests in 1805. Napoleon gave the Tyrol, the Western province of Austria, to Bavaria. It continued to keep to the right, although the bulk of Austrians drove on the left.

On 12 March 1938 Hitler invaded Austria, and the next day proclaimed Anschluss, the absorption of Austria into Germany. He ordered that the traffic should change from the left to the right side of the road, overnight. The change threw the driving public into turmoil, because motorists were unable to see most road signs. In Vienna it proved impossible to change the trams overnight, so while all other traffic took to the right hand side of the road, the trams continued to run on the left for several weeks. Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the last two states on the mainland of Europe to keep left, changed to the right after being invaded by Germany in 1939.

The increase in motor traffic after the war provided a powerful motive for switching from left to right. Most vehicles are made to drive on the right hand side of the road, and drivers do not want to have to change from one side of the road to the other when crossing international frontiers. It is no coincidence that this problem is minimised in three of the countries still holding to the left, Britain, Ireland and Japan, which are all islands.

China changed to the right in 1946. Sweden, which had escaped invasion by both Napoleon and Hitler, switched from the left in 1967, after a two year preparation. The changeover was accompanied by an intensive road safety campaign and the number of road accidents dropped sharply after the change. Several British colonies, such as Ghana, have changed from left to right in recent years. This causes some problems with roundabouts, where the smoothing of corners to make a fast exit or entrance for traffic on the left side of the road makes an awkward turn for those on the right.

Pakistan also considered changing form the left to the right in the 1960's. The main argument against the shift was that camel trains often drove through the night while their drivers dozed. The difficulty in teaching old camels new tricks was decisive in forcing Pakistan to reject the change.

Britain itself considered changing in the 1960s, but dropped the idea. If Britain ever does change then it would make sense to make the switch at the same time as adopting that other products of the French Revolution - metrication. For if all the road signs have to be turned round to face the other way, it would be relatively cheap to change from imperial units, on speed limit signs for example, at the same time.

The railways largely follow the established custom on the roads. (The canals follow the practice of navigation at sea, boats pass on the right.) The Liverpool and Manchester railway, the first steam-operated passenger railway, which opened in 1830, adopted the British rule of the road, with trains passing each other on the left. British Rail still follows the same custom.
The most notable divergence in custom on the roads and rails is in France, where the Trains of the Societe Nationale des Chemins de fers Francais (SNCF), run on the left. The reason has nothing to do with a counter revolutionary spirit following the restoration of the monarchy, but with the more prosaic fact that the first railways in France were built by a British engineer, Thomas Brassey. Indeed Brassey even imported British engine drivers.

However, in Alsace Lorraine, which was annexed by Germany in 1870, and returned to France only at the end of the First World War the trains drive on the right. German engineers simply followed the practice on the roads keeping right, and made Alsace Lorraine follow suit. Consequently the pre-1919 border between France and Germany is marked by railway flyovers (saut de mouton or sheep's jumps).

In Paris, too, the metro trains drive on the right. The first metro line did not open until 1900. The French government was keen to integrate the services of the metro with those of the mainline railways. The municipal council wanted to keep out the SNCF's trains. Its first idea, for a narrow metro, was vetoed by the government, which insisted that the distance between the rails on the metro should correspond to standard gauge 1·44 metres. So instead the council decided its trains should run on the right: and, to make doubly sure, it adopted a small loading gauge so that the large French railway trains would not be able to fit into a metro tunnel. Ironically the SNCF and the metro have begun to co-operate and develop a new network of express metros (Réseau express régionale) in the past 20 years. They run on the left. It is fortunate for the future of the Channel Tunnel that the British and the French railway systems both chose to run their trains on the left.

However, there is one street in London with decidedly revolutionary tendencies. It is outside the Savoy Hotel. It dates from the days when horse cabbies, seated on the right side of the vehicle, wanted to open the doors for their passengers, without forcing the fares to cross the road to reach the pavement. So on Savoy Street, a turning off the Strand, traffic drives on the right.

Mick Hamer