I’ve just read Karyn’s blog about driving on the wrong side of the road in Spain while on holiday. I should say she was driving on the “right” side of the road, but that would be confusing because we drive on the right side of the road, which is the “left”.
I can’t think of many things more unnatural than driving on the wrong side of the road.
I did it for a couple of weeks while I was in Europe in 1991 and it played with my mind. It nearly drove me nuts. It was so hard to concentrate, especially at roundabouts, border crossings and on the autobahn, not to mention the crazy streets or Brussels.
Luckily I didn’t cause any accidents and incurred no traffic offences, apart from a speeding fine in Limburg which my mother’s cousin paid after I’d left the country. But never again. I was young, alert, brave, stupid and agile at the time. Now I’m 40 and I dread driving in capital cities, let alone foreign countries on the wrong side of the road.
I’ll end up like my Uncle Jim who hardly drove anywhere after the age of 60 unless he absolutely had to.
What side of the road do they drive on in China? I think they drive on the left in Japan. They’re supposed to drive on the left hand side in India, but I hear that people there drive on whatever side has space available.
I read somewhere that Denmark (or one of the Scandinavian countries) used to drive on the left hand side, but changed to the right for solidarity with continental Europe and caused chaos on the changeover.
We take it for granted that it’s right to drive on the left. That’s the case in most of the British Commonwealth, Ireland and Japan (I think).
Why doesn’t the rest of the world change to conform with us, so that we have a universal standard? Is that too much to ask?
As it stands I will never drive on the wrong side of the road again.
×0
It was Sweden. The place where they switched from the left to the right, I mean. In about 1967. My husband was a child in Stockholm at the time.
And no, it wasn’t chaotic. Nothing the Swedes ever do is chaotic as far as I can tell (when they err, it’s to the other side of the spectrum!). It was all properly planned out. Over the space of some months, signs, lights, etc. were erected on the other side, but kept covered. An edict was issued that no-one was to drive at all between the hours of 10pm and 2am or something on d-day, while the covers were switched to the signs on the left and thereafter, everyone drove on the right. Very neat… on a macro level. How it felt for each individual, of course, is another matter. But knowing the Swedes, they had probably created practice centres where drivers could go and familiarise themselves beforehand.
Twitter: mgorey
says:
Karyn is quite right. Wikipedia has this entry, which shows that Sweden was the last European country to switch from driving on the left to the right. This article is even more illuminating:
Newfoundland (Canada), Nigeria and Burma are other jurisdictions that have made the change. Left-driving places are now a shrinking minority. Apart from Commonwealth countries the only left-hand drivers are in Ireland, Thailand, Indonesia and Japan.