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The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

mylondon.news

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Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#51

Post by qingcharles »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #15
ifwinterco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It would be way more annoying for LHD countries to change to RHD 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" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

Falkland Islands did it for a brief second, though not by choice.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#52

Post by qingcharles »

NordStreamYacht wrote: post #38
timbit42 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hong Kong drives on the left, mainland China on the right.

And there's a fun little dance where the roads meet.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#53

Post by KineticLensman »

ifwinterco wrote: post #13
1970-01-01 wrote: post #9

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…

You'd also have things like bus doors now being on the wrong side (traffic-side), road curvature being wrong (e.g. motorway junctions and entry/exit ramps), let alone car mirrors and driver positioning.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#54

Post by qingcharles »

netsharc wrote: post #46
lovich wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for informing me that China is likely to take over all manufacturing when it comes to cars. I am appalled that there are no US, Japanese, South Korean, Indian, Vietnamese, Russian, or any other nations that manufacture cars. 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…

In the eastern parts of Russia (well even in "central" Russia like Novosibirsk), there's a lot of imported Japanese cars from their second-hand market. These have the wheels "on the wrong side", but nobody cares, they still drive on the right.

It's really annoying have the wheel on the wrong side. Makes it really hard to pull out of parking spaces, or overtake.

Mail carriers in the USA also have their wheel on the other side so they can reach people's mailboxes easily.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#55

Post by dreamcompiler »

tmiahm wrote: post #27
garciansmith wrote: post #25

There are some spots in the US where you drive on the left, albeit for a short distance and the road is divided. Still messes with my brain. E.g., here in the northern suburbs of Detroit (W. Big Beaver going under I-75): https://www.google.com/maps/@42.5620634,-83.1581674,18z

It's called a Diverging Diamond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diverging_diamond_interchange

Thanks. There's one of these in Santa Fe, NM and I didn't know it had a name. I find driving on it odd but it works.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#57

Post by dreamcompiler »

There's also a part of the US where one must drive on the left: The US Virgin Islands. Driving there is more difficult than "normal" left-side driving (such as in the UK or Japan) because the cars in the USVI are standard US cars with the steering wheel on the left.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#58

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

ksec wrote: post #39
ifwinterco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I used to think about whether we can get more countries switching back to LHT, but with Autonomous Vehicles that will no longer be much of an issue in 10 - 20 years time.

I am told that Left Hand Drive is marginally safer (all other things being equal) because of the preponderance of right-handed people. Driving on the left of the road places the right-handed driver's dominant hand on the wheel and dominant eye towards the centre of the road and oncoming traffic.

However this is not an argument in favour of 20th century style, non-autonomous individual vehicles as the main transit solution. There are safer and better ways. Autonomous Vehicles will hopefully play a role in that.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#59

Post by 1970-01-01 »

deadbabe wrote: post #32
1970-01-01 wrote: post #9

London will switch sides when America goes metric - i.e. never.

The imperial system America uses is better optimized for quantities people expect to use in real life frequently without requiring awkward decimals or larger numbers etc. better ergonomics. metric is only for science.

American money is fully metric.

Re: The only road in London where you have to drive on the right

#60

Post by ifwinterco »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #15
ifwinterco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It would be way more annoying for LHD countries to change to RHD 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" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

IIRC a lot more countries did it but mostly a lot earlier (pre ww2).

Back then it would have been comparatively easy, cars were slow and there were barely any street signs etc anyway

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