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 sides. And don't forget to drive on the right after you leave for the day!
I heard somewhere that it used to be common in northern Italy to buy right hand drive cars (steering wheel on the right) for the same reason, it was better to have the driver at the edge of the road so that they could tell if they were too close to the edge on mountain roads with poorly defined edges and without crash barriers.
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 drive on the right)
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.
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.
A similar switch happened in 1970, when the Prime Minister of Myanmar suddenly and mysteriously decided that the country would switch to driving on the right-hand side of the road. The crazy thing is that the vast majority of vehicles today still have steering wheels on the right because the country has been buying used cars from Japan for years. Large vehicles like buses need a person acting as a spotter on the left side of the vehicle for safety! The Government finally mandated that, starting in 2017, imported vehicles must have steering wheels on the left side. Many drivers did not want to switch and thus there was a mad rush to buy cars in 2016, which the government was forced to counter by temporarily shutting-down imports.
In particular I found this interesting: "[...] most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving [mirroring how horse-drawn carriages had been set up]. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."
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 as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning).
And not all cars here have the seats on the right side. You can find cars that were imported and have the driver seat on the left. Or old/classic cars too.
>>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.
>> 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 as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning).
Agree, but I have to admit that I don’t have that issue anymore even if I change countries.
On the other hand I never remember that my native country has a strict policy on punishing jaywalking while UK doesn’t. It’s even harder to remember since the streets in the UK have way more traffic.
It makes me much more cautious crossing streets in London than in a typical US city. I simply don't trust my instincts about where traffic might be coming from.
That went into the 70s - when I was in school we learned both metric and imperial because the USA was in the process of switching. Wish we had followed through...
I don't think it is impossible, and many products wouldn't seem to change at all. 2L of milk visually looks like about a half gallon. (I am American and moved to Norway). Canned goods look to be around the same size. And so on.
Speed limits would take a bit of getting used to in some older cars, but I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over. Buying gas would take a little time, but it'll work out. A meter isn't all that different from a yard and rulers are cheap ways to measure centimeters. Signage and things will help folks do the conversion.
Temperature and distance, however, will take a bit longer. It has taken me a while to really understand how warm 10C is without having to convert the temperature, but I'm sure we can communicate such things. I still have no real handle on how far 100km is nor how long that would take to drive, though I know it is too far to walk.
Mostly, it would take legislation and money to start changing things (signs, for example) over. This would need to happen in 2 different stages so that for a decent time, both would be shown. Some things would just be immediately updated without issue.
Some of the sticker things probably needs to be funded as well - such as gas stations. I don't think they'd need to replace the entire pump, but it is a possibility especially for older stations.
Oh, and again, legislation needs to be there. In the current political climate, this is going to be a real hurdle and I can imagine it taking a patriotic tone much like the debate of teaching cursive writing.
Late 70s, I think (Carter administration). I remember those. As a kid I wondered, "will they put in kilometer-marker signs like the mile-marker signs on state roads?" (the small white ones near road level).
Not going to happen. UK and Japan are both island nations (as are Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia), so there is no pressing need to change. And India is probably too large to change.
Switching today would be virtually impossible. Just think of all the freeway interchanges that would have to be rebuilt, costing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.
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.
advantager|6 years ago
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 sides. And don't forget to drive on the right after you leave for the day!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31603030@N08/24313254363
kwhitefoot|6 years ago
chipperyman573|6 years ago
billforsternz|6 years ago
Symbiote|6 years ago
kd5bjo|6 years ago
drallison|6 years ago
nemetroid|6 years ago
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...
1e-9|6 years ago
nkrumm|6 years ago
In particular I found this interesting: "[...] most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving [mirroring how horse-drawn carriages had been set up]. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."
kinow|6 years ago
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 as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning).
And not all cars here have the seats on the right side. You can find cars that were imported and have the driver seat on the left. Or old/classic cars too.
felipemnoa|6 years ago
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.
heavenlyblue|6 years ago
Agree, but I have to admit that I don’t have that issue anymore even if I change countries.
On the other hand I never remember that my native country has a strict policy on punishing jaywalking while UK doesn’t. It’s even harder to remember since the streets in the UK have way more traffic.
dpark|6 years ago
Because space vehicles often need to share space roads?
ghaff|6 years ago
pzone|6 years ago
PTRFRLL|6 years ago
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/h-day/
yegle|6 years ago
There was an attempt in the 60s to convert to metric in US. If you are in SF bay area, go check this out:
https://images.app.goo.gl/JBqNpATVWgwi2qFh8
lscotte|6 years ago
Broken_Hippo|6 years ago
Speed limits would take a bit of getting used to in some older cars, but I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over. Buying gas would take a little time, but it'll work out. A meter isn't all that different from a yard and rulers are cheap ways to measure centimeters. Signage and things will help folks do the conversion.
Temperature and distance, however, will take a bit longer. It has taken me a while to really understand how warm 10C is without having to convert the temperature, but I'm sure we can communicate such things. I still have no real handle on how far 100km is nor how long that would take to drive, though I know it is too far to walk.
Mostly, it would take legislation and money to start changing things (signs, for example) over. This would need to happen in 2 different stages so that for a decent time, both would be shown. Some things would just be immediately updated without issue.
Some of the sticker things probably needs to be funded as well - such as gas stations. I don't think they'd need to replace the entire pump, but it is a possibility especially for older stations.
Oh, and again, legislation needs to be there. In the current political climate, this is going to be a real hurdle and I can imagine it taking a patriotic tone much like the debate of teaching cursive writing.
DrScump|6 years ago
perilunar|6 years ago
Did you notice that the SpaceX webcasts only use metric for the speed and altitude displays?
BurningFrog|6 years ago
kwhitefoot|6 years ago
perilunar|6 years ago
Btw, 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic
phillc73|6 years ago
India would be a huge proportion of that.
mjklin|6 years ago
[0]: https://youtu.be/6ODZtwkBYPs
wallace_f|6 years ago
>traffic accidents fell dramatically due to the extra caution people drove with
moltar|6 years ago
mixmastamyk|6 years ago
perilunar|6 years ago
frosted-flakes|6 years ago
dboreham|6 years ago
seppin|6 years ago
dTal|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
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