if in america drivers on the right side have right of way.. why do we drive on the left side?

Good question. I only know why the UK and it's former colonies, among other countries, drive on the left...but I've never thought about this before.


This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Aug 23, 2009 - 10:31 PM

Interesting point..

Driving on the Left stems from times when people rode horses as the main form of transport....it meant that when you met someone on the road you could easily shake hands with them.

Places where "shaking hands" wasnt used as a greeting didnt need to consider this.....places like the US (& most other former UK colonies) etc drive on the right as a snub to the UK, kind of like a driving **** you . I believe France etc adopted this aswell as the UK and France have been enemies for much of History and they hated the UK.....the rest of europe followed France for ease of driving around mainland Europe.

Had the English not been such a bunch of narrow minded dictators in the past I think most of the world would drive on the left.

Maybe people in Maryland didnt hate the English as much as everyone else does.

This post has been edited by Nial: Aug 24, 2009 - 7:10 AM

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Kind of like how the USA doesn't use the Metric System! (I think they did it on purpose) LOL

This post has been edited by Random_Stranger: Aug 24, 2009 - 8:04 AM

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The UK we use both metric and imperial all the time.....we use MPH and MPG...miles on our road signs (all imperial measurements) yet we sell petrol by the litre, food in grams.....we use meters/cm and yards/feet and inches...sometimes in the same sentence. not only that but we use KG and Lbs depending on what you buy unless its very heavy where we use mostly tons...or tonnes depending on where in the country you are or what it is....beer comes by the pint, yet soda is sold by the litre!!!!!...boost is measured by bar or KG/nm2...tyres by PSI.

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And because most men were right-handed, therefore they mounted said horses with their left foot leading and swung the right over the saddle, which can't be done on the right side of the road. Also, since the aforementioned men were right-handed, they carried their lances/swords in their right- meaning that oncoming duelers on horseback would pass each other to their right, or left of each other.

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Like that.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Aug 24, 2009 - 2:46 PM

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Also true .. the side of the road you ride on when jousting........on a completely unrelated topic it also dictates which way spiral staircases twist in castles....but thats getting way off topic

For no reason at all, this is the kind of stuff that makes history interesting to me.

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Check out "Beaumaris Castle" and "Conwy Castle" on Google image search...just spent a week on holiday in Wales and visited these two places...very interesting if you like history.

This post has been edited by Nial: Aug 24, 2009 - 3:15 PM

I would definitely like to tour England/GB.

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Very cool to know - make us a little drawing so we can understand that too
I agree Swiss

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I`ll try and explain....Imagine your stood at the bottom of a spiral staircase...sword in your right hand......if the spiral staircase goes up clockwise your sword hand would be towards the centre of the twist....now imagine someone coming down the stairs....it would be quite difficult to swing your sword at him.
Now imagine the spiral staircase going up anti clockwise...if someone was coming down the stairs it would be so much easier to fight them.

Castle designers used this idea......if people attacking the castle had to go up the stairs to get to the target then the spiral went clockwise up making it harder for the attacker and easier for the defender....likewise if the attacker had to go down the stairs to get to the target then the stairs would twist clockwise down.

Hope that makes sense

On this theory spiral staircases in a house should always go up clockwise making it easier to defend the upstairs......not really needed anymore as not many people will storm your house with a sword , but is nice to think that it matches with the original designers intent for spiral staircases.

Could this be possibly the most off topic thread ever from driving to spiral staircases in 5 posts

This post has been edited by Nial: Aug 24, 2009 - 4:10 PM

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That's really interesting to know Nial. Hey, when is the deadline for the photos again? Did they start sending you proper photos?

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My family home on my father's side has a spiral staircase setup this way - cool sh*t man

Hahahaha I love how quickly this thread left the original topic! Good stuff in here though. I'm learning quite a bit.

lol its all good richee.. people are replying to the topic..and nial i do have some family in UK... maryland UK connection =) and my ex girlfriend lives there too.. and happens to be member of 6gc

I've definitely learned quite a bit from this thread. I had never considered that there was even a purpose for the direction of a spiral staircase. I had been curious about why we drive on the left side of the road and other parts of the world stay right, but never thought too hard about it. And what Nial said about using both metric and imperial... I'm still scratching my head haha. I'd be way too confused for that.

Richee, you mean we drive right and they left...

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My bad. Told you I was scratching my head lol

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why cant you just say its me?