rec.autos.simulators

Thought this might be of interest. The European part is apparently from an
article in New Scientist (UK) and the US bit's from a Bill Bryson book. It
educated me a little, but that's not hard :-)

In pre-revolutionary France, carriages, etc rode on the left hand side of
the road. The driver sat on the right hand side of the vehicle so that he
could have his whip in his right (***) hand. When two carriages are
passing on a narrow road it is better to pass driver to driver so as it is
easier to see how much space one has. Therefore carriages rode on the left
hand side of the road. Of course, in pre-revolutionary France, only the
nobility had carriages, the peasantry walked. Then, as now, if you are
walking along a road used by vehicles, you walk on the opposite side so
that you are facing the oncoming traffic. Therefore travelling on the left
was associated with the nobility and travelling on the right with the
peasantry. In post revolutionary France, nobody wanted to be thought a
member of the aristocracy, so everybody changed to driving on the right,
and I believe the practice was enshrined in law before Napoleon cam along.

What Napoleon did was to take the drive on the right rule to large
chunks of Western Europe that he conquered. Subsequently Hitler extended
it further to countries like Czechoslovakia, which until WW2 also drove on
the left.

Of more interest is why North America drives on the right rather than the
left. This has more to do with the prairie schooners (the carriages used
to cross the wilderness. There was no need for whips, and so the drivers
sat on the left hand side of the carriage. This allowed them to keep the
reins in their right (***) hand, and meant that the brake lever was
on the left hand side of the carriage. To allow carriages to pass driver
to driver, they had to drive on the right hand side of the path.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Andrew McP... member of the nobility, obviously ;-)

--
Slot

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

Saw a television thing about stupid drivers the other day.
It was in the UK and a helicopter pilot was reporting how the driver was
going to the 'opposite' side of the road and back again to the 'correct'
side.
Carefully avoiding the word 'right' ....

Joergen  ....Driving on the 'right' side of the road, obviously  ;-)

The first civilisation to actually build roads was the roman empire, when
the french were still asterix (eating boars), the english were a horde of
unshaven saxons and the americans we learning how to handle an election
(sorry I couldn't resist).

As you know the *** hand is the right one, the romans has swords
(called glaive in french but i don't know the english word).

As you also know the roman didn't drive cars or whatever except in hollywood
movies (I just saw Ben Hur again recently).

When you have a sword in its sheat on the right side and you want to climb
on a horse it is much easier to do so from the left side of the horse, and
since you don't want to be crushed by standing on the middle of the road you
tend to put the horse on the right hand side of the road, and you are
standing on the right of the horse, out of the road, and normally once
you've climbed on the horse you don't turn around 180, so that's why on the
roman highways the cirulation as on the right hand side of the road (they
can still see this accoring to the way the road have been damaged by
traffic).ie the left side of the tracks...

Maybe lok into industrial revolution in England to find an explanation to
this railroad thing that probably moved to the road in england.

Now why the british-normands-saxons started to "drive" on the "wrong' side
of the road is unknown to me, but i know that almost ALL the trains in the
world are driving on the "english way" ie t

In Holland we used to drive our carriages on the left side of the road, but
when the electric tram was introduced (around 1890/1900 I guess), they
discovered that horses were quite scared when a tram (on its track in middle
of the street) passed it. Therefore, they decided that trams should travel
on the rightmost of the two tracks, so the carriage driver could see the
trams coming on the track that was nearest to him. later, when there were
less and less horses in the street, they decided everyone should driver at
the right side.

I don't know if it's true, but it is a nice explanation.

grtgs,
hgrm

<Snap: Txl explained that driving at the right side is a Roman habit>

I was also told by a history teacher (a good 10 years ago or so now)
that men's shirts button up with the opening to the right for the same
reason - easier access to a dagger you may have concealed in there,
should the need arise. Women, I guess, weren't considered to need
daggers those days - or they were all left handed.

DG.

:o)

~daxe

~dx

Personally I like your explanation better - it's nice to be a member
of the left-driving aristocracy, or rather, to not be one of the
peeasants... :-)

John

<vain attempt at making it on topic>

Mind you, I'm not sure if it helps with driving efficiency having them
buttoned this way.

</vaamiont>
--
Peter Ives - (AKA Ivington)
Remove ALL_STRESS before replying

No person's opinions can be said to be
more correct than another's, because each is
the sole judge of his or her own experience.