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That makes it sound like Britain is the only place with left side traffic. 35% of the world population live in countries where they drive on the left side.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure you know this, but for the benefit of those who haven't seen it before: it does not go anticlockwise. The"roundabout" in the middle is an illusion generated by the 5 normal roundabouts in a circle. There are no special rules. It has a bad rep, but if you're used to British mini roundabouts, driving on it is a non-event. The regularity actually means it's simpler than other, smaller, but more arbitrary aggreg…
So it accomplishes the baseline performance that just about every major intersection planned out in the last 100yr does of being navigable without serious confusion. If it's so good why aren't there more of them? Not like England has any shortage of N-way (where N >4) intersections they could be used at. The wikipedia page says "the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an exce…
Experimentation with junction design has been a good thing in the UK. Many of the designs are, however, attempts to do as well as possible in the space, because a better design would require compulsorily purchasing some people's houses or gardens. So, although there are not lots of magic roundabouts, there are lots of agglomerations of mini-roundabouts with slightly different topology , many of which are more annoying (but fit in the space, and keep traffic flowing).
However, it does seem likely that this is kept mainly because of its fame. I seem to recall that there was a proposal to replace it which was shouted down.
London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
Plus everyone would then be driving cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side for decades until the whole fleet got eventually replaced.
Countries have done it before, but I think there's a reason not many countries have done it since the mid 20th century when roads and cars were a lot simpler and there were fewer of them.
Switching to metric could be done gradually - replacing existing signs with metric ones only when they wear out, building new systems in metric while still using US units for the old ones.
There's no way to gradually switch from LHT to RHT, you have to somehow do a switchover in a day
> There's only one spot in London where you'll have to drive like much of the rest of the world That makes it sound like Britain is the only place with left side traffic. 35% of the world population live in countries where they drive on the left side.
London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
It would be way more annoying for LHT countries to change to RHT than to switch from US units to metric, have to change literally every road sign, street light, road markings etc in the entire country. Plus everyone would then be driving cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side for decades until the whole fleet got eventually replaced. Countries have done it before, but I think there's a reason not many countri…
As a complete aside, 1 country has done this: Sweden on 3 September 1967 and "It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden's history"
London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
See also: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon. One of the only? roundabouts in the UK that goes anticlockwise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempst...
> There's only one spot in London where you'll have to drive like much of the rest of the world That makes it sound like Britain is the only place with left side traffic. 35% of the world population live in countries where they drive on the left side.
Using total population is a bad metric considering India itself has about 2 out of 7 billion people.
> There's only one spot in London where you'll have to drive like much of the rest of the world That makes it sound like Britain is the only place with left side traffic. 35% of the world population live in countries where they drive on the left side.
Using total population is a bad metric considering India itself has about 2 out of 7 billion people.
London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.
Once all manufacturing is controlled by China, they could refuse to make cars with steering on the right or use Standard measurements, increasing pressure and eventually forcing the UK and US to switch.
It also sounds completely plausible that a binary choice like left hand or right hand driving can be switched in a way that drives a pressure campaign that nations will give into China on because it’s an easier short term choice and wouldn’t gain an immediate reaction to due to the enormous cost that would be rapidly felt.