Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides • Hacker News Board

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#61

Post by billforsternz » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

advantager wrote: post #8

On most mining properties in North America and elsewhere, driving is strictly on the left. This is because haul trucks have such large blind spots to their right side, it's best to give them a clear view of the side of the road (which may be a sheer drop-off). I've done a fair amount of driving on site, and it's a bit of a trip. Usually right after the main gate there is a cross-over point where you yield and switch…

I talked to a guy at a gas station once with an exotic wrong way round car. He owned it because he was a car lover, but had come to prefer driving close to the kerb. He also enjoyed the lolz as other drivers did a double take when it appeared his dog was driving and he was the passenger.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#62

Post by rendaw » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:27 AM UTC

ClassyJacket wrote: post #44

felipemnoa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. Reason is that bicycles sometimes drive in the opposite direction as cars. Also, sometimes cars, for whatever reason, will drive in reverse.

>You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. This is true, but when I finally went to a right-side country (Czechia) at age 29, I discovered that contrary to what I believed, I must not be, because I kept only looking right.

Concur. I believe that regardless of whether you look both ways or just one, if you're not expecting cars to be oncoming in a certain direction you're unlikely to see them.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#63

Post by zulln » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:31 AM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #58

rootusrootus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people that think it's painful are the folks who keep telling us we need to switch. We know the measurements we use pretty well, and even then there are plenty of things already measured in metric. Plus, it's not like everyone else has fully switched. The UK still seems perfectly comfortable talking about weight in stones and all their cars measure speed in mph just like the US.

Ireland is 100% metric, yet you go into the grocery store and the butter is in 454g blocks.

Even for TV size?

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#64

Post by dmos62 » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:36 AM UTC

moltar wrote: post #20

kenneth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we drive on the right is the precise reason why trucks have less of a blind spot on the left. (We place the driver's seat closest to the center of the road, while on a mine site it's better to be close to the edge of the road.) If we drove on the left and built cars accordingly, then you'd see mine site tricks driving on the right. Left and right are not inherently different in any way (except I guess f…

Burma is a fascinating story. They switched, like Sweden, but without planning. The reason? A fortune teller said the country would be prosperous. And now people exit the bus into the traffic instead of the sidewalk. Because nobody has the money to replace the buses or cars.

They could switch sides of the road, instead of replacing the vehicles. Moving and rotating all the signs is probably cheaper and easier.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#65

Post by m-i-l » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #12

advantager wrote: post #8

On most mining properties in North America and elsewhere, driving is strictly on the left. This is because haul trucks have such large blind spots to their right side, it's best to give them a clear view of the side of the road (which may be a sheer drop-off). I've done a fair amount of driving on site, and it's a bit of a trip. Usually right after the main gate there is a cross-over point where you yield and switch…

Interesting, I didn't know about the blind spot problem for trucks. Is there a reason we drive on the right in America, then? I kind of assumed we just randomly picked it because neither answer solves a problem with the alternative (or the country we copied randomly picked, I don't know the full history), but it seems like there's a pretty solid argument to always drive on the left (at least, there's no reason to dri…

As the parent comment suggests, most people are right eye dominant so from a safety perspective keeping the dominant eye closer to the oncoming traffic is preferable. And even before cars, most right handed people mount horses from their right side, especially if they've a big sword on their left, and it is safer to mount from the side rather than the middle of the road. The story I learned when I was younger was that most of continental Europe, and the (at the time) pro-French US, shifted to the right because Napoleon was left handed, although it isn't quite that simple - see "Why do some countries drive on the left and others on the right?"[0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869812 .

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#66

Post by VBprogrammer » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

anoncake wrote: post #60

kenneth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we drive on the right is the precise reason why trucks have less of a blind spot on the left. (We place the driver's seat closest to the center of the road, while on a mine site it's better to be close to the edge of the road.) If we drove on the left and built cars accordingly, then you'd see mine site tricks driving on the right. Left and right are not inherently different in any way (except I guess f…

> except I guess for people being right-handed more than left-handed, though has little effect. Eye dominance is also a thing.

I'm from the UK so the steering wheel 'belongs' on the right hand side. However, I've driven thousands of miles across Europe and Canada.

The only time I ever struggled with driving on the other side (other than the occasional lapse while doing a U-turn on a very quiet street) was driving over the Alps in a manual hire car, driving a very narrow road with hundreds of switch-backs, where my weak hand (I'm right handed) wasn't used to the task of steering.

I can't say I've ever noticed any difference in vision.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#67

Post by danieltillett » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

felipemnoa wrote: post #11

kinow wrote: post #6

Would be great to have - someday - everybody driving on the same side of the road. I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. I moved from a country that drives on the right lane, to one in the Commonwealth, driving on the left lane. It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing, and…

>>It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. Reason is that bicycles sometimes drive in the opposite direction as cars. Also, sometimes cars, for whatever reason, will drive in reverse.

You are correct to worry about cars in reverse. I was nearly killed crossing the road when some idiot decided that going at 50km/hr in reverse up a one way street was a wise idea.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#68

Post by nemetroid » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:18 AM UTC

drallison wrote: post #42

I was in Sweden on the day they changed over. It was carefully planned. All of the signage was switched over night--old signs removed or covered and new ones revealed. I don't remember what was done for lane markings. Drivers had been practicing for months. Right-hand drive cars persisted for a while. Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

> I don't remember what was done for lane markings.

The Swedish Wikipedia article[0] mentions this. In conjunction with the change-over, lane markings went from yellow to white. This article doesn't mention it, but I recall reading that some roads had both colours during the transition.

0: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggnin...

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#69

Post by Symbiote » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:41 AM UTC

seszett wrote: post #59

wiredfool wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ireland is 100% metric, yet you go into the grocery store and the butter is in 454g blocks.

That's because their main commercial partner (both because of geographical proximity and shared language which allows using the same packaging) isn't fully metric. It used to be the same in Canada (or at least Québec) but I've heard that more products are sold in round metric quantities these days.

That's true for some sausages and jams, but all butter is sold in multiple of 250g in Britain.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/milk-b...

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#70

Post by tragomaskhalos » Fri, Apr 12, 2019, 11:52 AM UTC

dTal wrote: post #14

seppin wrote: post #3

Of all things why does this keep getting posted here? Curious

It's an interesting question. A theory that occurs to me is that much of modern computing is the way it is due to network effects and historical baggage. We all fantasize of ways we could be doing things better, if only we could have a clean start. For us, the story of an entire country seamlessly jumping from a local optimum to a global one is practically pornographic.