Drive on the LEFT, you plonkers!
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- Опубликовано: 25 мар 2013
- I am, of course, not meaning to suggest that driving on the left is the only thing that makes British roads so safe. We are also very efficient and catching and punishing traffic offenders. The Japanese also have very safe roads, and live on a crowded island with high car-ownership, and lots of tired drivers working long hours. They too drive on the left.
There are reasons that driving on the left was the norm. One is that a right-footed person naturally mounts a horse from its left, and this led to horses' being trained to be mounted this way, and getting jittery if anyone tried it the other way around. British roads are not the safest in every way. I read, while researching this video, that other comparable countries suffer fewer child pedestrian accidents. It has been suggested that this may be because the British are so very cautious, and use barriers and the like to stop children running out into the road from schools. One possible result of this is that children end up feeling that they are safe, and so do not look after themselves so well.
Another example of a lop-sided ape effect is the oft-repeated 'fact' that clockwise sections of ring roads, such as the M25 motorway around London, have 75% of the total accidents on the road, and the anti-clockwise sections just 25% (e.g. www.motoringassist.com/blog/20.... However, while researching this video, I couldn't find a reliable source for this, so I left it out, but I would be surprised if there isn't a difference.
I know I'll gets asked, so here's the source of the stat at the end:
www.see.ed.ac.uk/IIE/research/...
www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
Ok. You're right. I'll drive on the left starting tomorrow. Thank you!
You already did. When you come out of public building you take a short cut to the left like everyone else. You tend to walk around obstacles to your right and climb over or through the ones in "your way"..
Michael McNeil I'm not sure what you smoked, but I'm sure it should be illegal.
I don't think he was advocating for it, just replying to the remarks he gets when in America.
David W. The title says : "Drive on the LEFT, you plonkers!". Sure sounds like he's advocating just a little bit :)
And my comment was an attempt at humour. Never drive on the other side as the ONLY inhabitant of a country :)
P. De Rop Oh, ok. But I think the title was joking too, and to catch attention!! :)
It'd be pretty hard to drive opposite to what side your country does :) Even if you eliminate the problem of cars, the road configurations would be backwards. Designated turning lanes would be on the road you're turning onto rather the road your turning from. Not to mention the traffic lights facing the other way.
Don't you worry, the metric system is gaining ground in the UK, inch by inch.
we got a joker here
Yee. You should try it sometime...
its easier to work in metric but easier to estimate in imperial.
Thats I do it anyway.
After all metric products are based on there imperial predecessor's.
Timber comes in 50×50 plaster board comes in 1200 × 2400 etc .
its much easier to work in because you dont need to use fractions .
but if you simply look at a gap you say its about 8ft ie 2 boards or 2400mm
+Lawrence Gardiner yea there is a foot is the same size a size 12 foot .
Thats a very easy thing to visualise
sure you could count it of in 300mm increments like studs go every 600 ie every 2 feet .
but counting 3 6 9 obviously takes more thought than 1 2 3.
its not that I learned imperial 1st either im gen y my entire schooling was in metric.
it simply that estimating feet is easier .
if its the hight of a man well thats about 6 feet .
+Lawrence Gardiner no thats a dwarf lol
Lindy “India drives on the left”. Me “they appear to drive wherever they like when I was last there”!
did you not see the caption at the bottom of the screen he knows this, joke went so far and quick over your head you made the joke again and killed it
A funny thing, that is.
Back in 1938, when Austria was annexed by Germany during the _Anschluss_, the first thing that happened when German soldiers crossed the border were hundreds of road accidents.
Back then, the Germans already drove on the right, but the Austrians still drove on the left... but nobody had bothered to tell that to the Wehrmacht drivers.
Also it is really difficult for some people to get used to it.
So, if we Austrians had stuck a bit longer to our traffic laws back then, we might have been able to slow down the Anschluss significantly?
Damn, if only anybody had told us back then...
+Drops2cents
killing the majority of Austrians who supported the Anschluss would have been more effective.
Does it really matter to you which side to drive on if you drive a Panzer?
Evidently, you're not German.
_Ordnung muss sein!_
I live in the US. I'm going to start driving on the left, I think it'll catch on.
But he was just replying to the remarks he gets from Americans, not actually advocating for America to switch.
+David W.
Well it seemed to have worked, several police cars started following me, I thought they were giving me an escort, and wanted to help spread the idea! but then they ran me off the road! I'll give it another go in 3 to 6 months. I still think it'll catch on
The Trammell You have to try harder! Your enthusiasm is great, but, you can't wait 3 months. Everyone is counting on you!
I think the problem is that he has to wait 3 months as he is in jail for that time.
It'll catch something.
This American took your advice and started driving on the left. You told me it would be safer, you lied to me.
Nesseight
And you survived to tell the tale!😜😜😂🤣🐾🐾🐾🐾
Thales Nemo What is that mess of emojis.
Sherb13 Millennial hieroglyphs
Jack Blades Ahhhhhhh. I understand what you mean. They are incomprehensible and pointless.
You're not driving on the right side.
Your own language has doomed your argument!
We are actually - driving on the right side of the car that is.
+NobleBrutus Well played, good sir!
No, we drive on the correct side :p
You're right about your right but we are left with driving on the left.
Alas, Aotearas has thus argued sophistically. For "right" has a double meaning: it means what is acceptable, correct and good, as it is often used, while on the other hand we say right in the sense of personal and spatial deixis. Thus he committed the fallacy of ambiguity; deliberately misunderstanding what is meant by "right" in in order to fabricate a refutation.
Ah, we do drive on the left. Our steering wheels are on the left.
However, you are right about needing the right hand to do the important things. In American cars, the drink holder is generally to the right of the steering wheel. I therefor use my right hand to hold my beer.
"I therefor use my right hand to hold my beer."
I take it you know that you shouldn't drink and drive?
At least not at the same time...
Yeah, so ease off the accelerator before you take a sip
That's what I meant.
Would be a damn shame to spill a good beer, right?
+David Messer - as well as open a Big Mac, flip through a Playboy and light a cigarette. Let's see the Brits do all that with their left hand!
+bowie33333 let's see how many accidents anyone gets into while doing that.
"Driving on the right is a French imposition of conquest" then lists mostly British colonies as examples of driving on the left.
+James Hunter I was just about to....
xD
That wasnt conquest, it was bringing civilisation (they failed for australia ofc).
And which side did the Africans drive their cars on before?
Thrawnmulus the british empire and French napoleon aren't the same.
Being conquered by the French was Bad being invited to join the British Empire was a great honour.
If you don't like how I drive,stay off the sidewalk!
+Matthew Wayer And stop trying to confuse me by spraying blood on the windshield. It's amazingly rude you know!
I think you mean pavement
Well, I should hope that most roads are entirely paved - so calling just parts of them pavement is really stupid...
Well, perhaps not most but certainly the bigger ones which include bits to the side which aren't meant for automobile travel.
you tarmac roads, the pavement is paved, with slabs.
Hahahahahaha
That's why I got an automatic, so I can drive with my knee.
Sounds what an Aussie would do.
lmao
but do you your right or left knee?
@@RakastanPorkkanakakkua
Both
@@RakastanPorkkanakakkua left because the right is using the peddles. you've driven a car right?
You convinced me that driving on the left is better when you said driving on the right was a French thing.
A major advantage of driving on the right you didn't mention: when startled by, say, a duck in the road, people tend to swerve to their dominant side. If you're driving on the right, like we do in Canada, that means swerving away from oncoming traffic, not towards it. A disproportionate amount of these kinds of accidents actually occur with left handed people in North America, because they tend to swerve towards traffic.
WRONG! Aircraft carriers always have their control towers on the starboard (RHS) of the ship because right-handed pilots tend to pull to the left in the event of a landing accident.
So basically every place conquered by Britain drives on the left (with the exception of the North American Colonies, Egypt and China) . Why isn't that surprising ?
It's the other way around. Driving on the right is only in countries that have been conquered by the french, and subsequent colonies of those countries. Of the European countries, all drove on the left before Napoleon's conquest. He could spread it since France is on the European mainland.
Smokey MacPot Well, you came across as saying that left-driving was a "silly british" thing.
What can we say? We passed on our intelligence to those who wanted it.
sweden was not conquered by the french, thank you.
+HinFoo not military, but our royal family is named bernadotte and is from france.
Two general points on the points Lloyd made:
1. Racing drivers did not 'pretty much all' choose to have the gear lever on the on their left.
When it comes to motorsport I'm mostly into F1 and a little into endurance racing, so I'm not claiming to speak for all of motorsport, but in the days F1 actually featured true manual transmission, they had the gear lever almost exclusively on the right. And we're talking about about eras of F1 that were dominated by British teams (Lotus, McLaren, Williams, Brabham etc.) here, with most of the drivers also coming from the UK, and yet they chose to have the stick to their right. Now back in the day in endurance racing, all race cars had to undergo homologation to be approved for the races. That means they had to be based on real life cars that could be bought and driven on public roads (the GT class still works that way). One consequence of this was that teams could actually choose between right- and left-hand drive. In old pictures you might find that most of them decided to put the driver on the right, the reason not being that this was the superior side, as Lloyd wants us to believe, but rather that the most important and prestigious race of the year was driven in Le Mans, a clockwise track made up almost entirely of right-hand corners. Putting the driver on the inside of those corners simply made for better weight distribution. A lot of the drivers driving those cars in right hand drive actually found the gear lever to be awkward on the left, which led to many driving on the right and shifting with the right (which looks really weird if you ask me and is a huge indicator that drivers actually preferred right hand shifting). A famous example of this is the Ford lineup from '66, which incidentally featured Ken Miles and Bruce McLaren as their best drivers, both of which would shift with their left if they were driving at home on the roads, yet on the racetrack, they chose to have it the other way.
2. The statistics about the correlation of road safety and side of driving is presented completely without context.
Yes, GB ranks a bit better than other European countries with similar total pop, pop density, and standard of living (I think France and Germany are the best comparison in those regards, Spain and Italy are also similar) in terms of road fatalities per capita, fatalities per distance driven and also mortality rate of people involved in accidents (when it comes to fatalities per vehicles, Britain is en par with these countries). But to attribute that fact solely to driving on the left side of the road is ridiculous to me. Britain for example has by far the lowest speed limit on motorways out of that group of countries, that plays a role right? There are loads of factors that go into how many accidents happen and how severe they are. And it's not like Britain scores twice as good as Germany or France in road safety statistics, as Lloyd claims.
Some more factors:
Speed of travel
Age of vehicle
Safety measures of vehicle
Type of vehicle (suv, Limo, small Car)
Engine power
Hospital quality, density
Emt quality, speed
And then you would still have to factor in "driving culture" and rules
Sod off.
@@benjaminclarke7984 yeah, I'm not gonna do that
@@richard_nj Mores the pity
@@HENKOMAT
Really-really underrated comment.
Ok, Britain is right with driving on the left, but wrong with Imperial measurement. France is wrong with driving on the right, but right with the Metric system.
and America is just wrong about everything...
:)
Pretty sure we use the metric system too, especially in education
I'm sorry, but pints are simply superior to litres. There's no getting around it.
+A Quite Obese Pig Only when you're in a bar.
And Australia is right about both.
First you're going off about driving on the right is French imperialism and then you talk about India and Australia driving on the left. Ok then.
Then you say Racing drivers prefer their gear sticks on the left. I'm kind of a racing enthusiast and from what I've seen gearshifters sit on the right more often as on the left. Checked some 80's F1 onboards to be sure and they confirm this.
Then you say that your dominant eye is important. If you're sitting on the left of a vehicle, your dominant eye is more towards the center of the vehicle giving it a better over-view instead of having it's sight-lines impaired by the A-pillar.
Britain does have excellently low traffic accident numbers. Not as low as the Scandinavian countries though, who drive on the right.
At any rate the discussion is kind of futile, our infrastructure has come such a long way that we're way too heavily invested in either driving left or right. It would be next to impossible to change that I think.
+Peter Timowreef I was thinking the same thing about imperialism. He was going on about the only reason people drive on the right is because the french took them over, then mentioned the smart people that drive on the left... all the countries that England took over.
Owen Major
Honestly I don't think there's any substantial safety difference between the two. And if there was it'd be nigh on impossible to measure and quantify. I think Lindybeige feels this way because he happened to be born in a left-driving country.
Peter Timowreef I agree, all the variables involved make this a moot point.
+Peter Timowreef How would you explain the 10 fold difference in traffic accidents?
blazednlovinit
Between what?
This is precisely why so much tea ended up in Boston Harbor.
"It still tastes bad to this day."
Which would explain why Americans still haven't learned how to make a decent cup of tea and thus prefer a hot beverage resembling to what is usually called coffee (which isn't really inferior, but just a different type of poison to be chosen on personal preference) in civilized countries (not Northern Germany, for instance).
I mean, putting tea leaves in cold salt water - that's just wrong.
Drops2cents still better than paying the queen
Because Americans can't deal with it when told they're wrong?
@@UKMonkey Your version of "right" got it's ass booted out of the colonies by a bunch of boozed up farmers and frontiersmen.
Btw, do you have a license to be watching youtube?
In my opinion there are a couple of more factors which were not addressed. For instance let's look at speed limits. After a real quick research on this topic I see that in Britain, you are driving way slower than especially in Germany, but also slower than in France or the Netherlands. I think it makes sense that speed does have a huge impact on traffic accidents.
Also the video is describing advantages in terms of reaction times through the stronger side of limps/eyes. Advantages in terms of brain processing is achieved mainly by training. Thus people who drive all their lives on the right side of the street should be accustomed to using their sensory resources to it fullest potential.
I think it is clear where I want to get here. The video does indeed make a fine theory, but I can easily formulate a theory which stands for the opposite effect. Unless there is statistically significant and empirical conducted research of the topic I would advice against claiming that driving on the left is better as driving on the right or vice versa. I am happy to hear opinions.
I'm right handed and left eyed... Should I drive in the middle?
coryman125 same
Cut out the left eye or cut off the right hand.
coryman125 I too share your plight
Mclaren F1
I have to disagree with a few points you made. From what I can tell as a previously professional driver, there's little reason to prefer a hand that uses the steering wheel. Use of a modern steering wheel doesn't require much strength or coordination. There's only two things a steering wheel will do, and a pretty fine line between them; they'll turn left, or they'll turn right. Easily achievable with the left hand. I'd argue that a gear-shift-stick (i forget what these are called atm) is more difficult to use, as there can be as many as 4 directions it can move in at any given time, and it's nearly as important to get those right as well. As for feet, I believe that's almost universally the same. The right foot controls the throttle and brake, whilst the left foot operates the clutch (or sits idly by in an automatic vehicle).
Now, I do have to concede the point about being right-eyed. This does admittedly lend an inherent advantage to left-hand-side-of-the-road-drivers. Unless you're drunk. See, whilst driving on the right hand side as someone who is right-eyed, it tends to *look* as if there is less distance between you and the lane to your left than there actually is, effectively keeping you further from that lane. Under standard driving conditions, this may be largely irrelevant as it doesn't make a big impact on driving capability, but if driving impaired... There's potentially a larger buffer zone between you and the opposing lane depending upon your percieved position in your lane. I'm sorry if that was difficult to understand... I found myself having trouble trying to explain it properly.
My final counterpoint will argue against the relevance of the final statistic you gave in your video concerning the number of traffic accidents per million miles in the US and Britain. I put it to you to consider that perhaps Americans are just, by and large, innately terrible drivers. Unfortunately, I cannot offer any solid evidence to back up this claim. But I am an American myself, and we'll honestly let anyone drive in this country. We let the elderly drive, we let the deaf and the blind drive, we let the otherwise handicapped (physically and mentally) drive, we let teenagers drive with minimal restrictions.... And I've often heard stories from my peers that they or a friend have failed their theory test and been awarded a license. Accident rates in America are so high (in my opinion) because a significant number of drivers on our roads, simply shouldn't be trusted with a vehicle at all.
I seemed to have rambled on for much longer than I'd intended to, now... It's not that I don't appreciate the video. On the contrary, it's quite interesting to hear opposing opinions from time to time and you tend to make very thoughtful points about things in general. It's for that very reason, actually, that I felt the need to pick on a few of them.
Bit late but oh well. You are wrong about a right eye on the right side as it would actually make it seem like there is less space on the right side. Hence one would move slightly further into the middle of the road which as you said is more dangerous. As a left eyed person in a left drive country I must admit that I do usually drive too far to the middle of the road, however I am a minority
You don’t need strength or dexterity to use a shifter off handed. It’s heaps better to drive right shift left
I've got to agree with you. You make a convincing counter-argument. I have to admit as well, thoughtful comments are always an interesting extension to the video.
this is a comment section not an essay, bottom line fuk napoleon
Good points. I'd add to the American comment that in the US the automatic transmission is more common than in Europe. So, if having right hand on the wheel reduced accidents, then I'd imagine that having both hands on the wheel as you have in an automatic car all the time should reduce them even further. Clearly Lloyd's theory doesn't work
You'd actually want your dominant hand performing the more complicated tasks. Handling a manual stick shift, changing the radio station, or even clicking buttons on a GPS if one had to are all more complicated than simply holding a wheel straight. I've known people to drive with one finger; that's how easy it is to handle the wheel. And having your right eye further from what you're seeing has no impact on how quickly you react to it, since lightspeed is lightspeed.
My thought exactly.
+JenoPaciano Steering is a far more difficult task, shifting gears with the left hand is very easy. Steering is the more critical task too, if you fumble a gear change it's an inconvenience... If you are imprecise with your steering it can get you killed. Sure, holding the wheel straight takes next to no effort but it's not always that simple. Certainly not on the small, twisty roads of the UK.
As for changing the radio, that's not even slightly difficult, I can do that without looking with my left hand. Fiddling with a GPS and stuff of that nature.... You shouldn't be doing that while you are driving. Your attention should be on the road, not on the GPS screen. If you need to do that you do it while you are stopped, lots of people die while distracted adjusting their GPS.
At the end of the day though I'm not convinced it makes any difference whether you drive on the left or the right.
Xei If you're driving around curves, you should have two hands on the wheel. If you're going straight, you use one hand and cruise control. That's why the dominant hand stays free to do literally anything you might need to do.
+JenoPaciano A lot of the roads in the UK are an endless set of curves, you don't have the option to keep two hands on the wheel at all times. You have to take a hand off the wheel to shift gears.
Xei You don't have the option to keep two hands on the wheel at all times? You realize this is why automatic transmissions were built, right? One hand on the wheel going around curves is unsafe.
1:22 Sooo, basically all of the former British Empire.. What was that point about driving on the right as a sign of submission to French rule?
japan wasnt a british colony. neither was guyana. and neither was cyprus.
@@roybennett9788 but India, Australia and New Zealand were
@@felixthecat0371 You could make the same argument if every country in the world drove on the left side.
"The entire British Empire drives on the left side (plus some other, entirely unrelated countries) therefore it's a sign of British occupation!
@@roybennett9788 Guyana was a British colony. Cyprus was a British colony. And while no, Japan wasn't occupied by the British, nor was China by the French. What now?
driving on the right side is as wrong as democracy or metric system.
I was taught not to drive with my hand on the gearstick, except when I was shifting gears, just as I was taught not to have my foot riding the clutch when I was not shifting gears.
Keeping your foot on the clutch while not shifting gears is really dangerous, don't ever do that
@@Buffalo_Soldier if you rest your feet on the clutch you could press it by accident (those pedals are really sensible) , therefore going in neutral and causing an incident
@@roccopiosaracino3681 quite hard to cause an accident just by disengaging the clutch.
One very bad thing about driving with your foot on the clutch though is that you can have partial clutch disengagement. This leads to major clutch wear, and you get worse reaction when you hit the gas, since your clutch is much more prone to slipping.
@@shurdi3 yeah that's a problem too, and i know that going neutral is not that risky but you don't wan to do that while you are on a slope
@@roccopiosaracino3681 I dont see how it'd be any more of an issue on a slop either, unless you are going up, in that case, yeah, bad things will be more likely to happen.
If your off hand is so clumsy that manipulating a steering wheel is a problem, you might not just be a "lopsided ape", you might have a spastic impairment.
I'm quite alright with being a right handed right side driver. If I would have to use my left hand to not just shift gear, but manipulate all those gadgets that are common in modern cars, I would have to avert way more attention away from the road than I do now. The minutely better control my right hand can exude over the steering wheel would certainly not make up for that.
Also, they don't drive on the left in some parts of Africa, Asia and on some islands because it somehow is "the natural way", but because of colonialism. Japan is, as far as I know the only country that has adapted left side driving without being a current or former British colony and the Japanese did it because at the time they considered the British Empire the best power to emulate overall, not because driving on the left side is somehow superior or more natural. If they would have had to make that decision a few decades later, they would most likely have copied the American way of doing it.
Right side driving on the other hand (no pun intended) was not just chosen by former French colonies.
I agree, regardless of the history of which side to drive on (which is very interesting), having the right hand towards the center of the car makes much more sense (for a right handed person). The steering wheel is just movement in a guided circle...big deal. Shifting is manipulating a stick through a maze (until it becomes 2nd nature), turning the keys, using the e-brake, changing radio stations, etc...all tasks best served with the dominant hand. Although it does make giving a vulgar gesture to an opposite vehicle more difficult. Perhaps that was the real reasons Brits drive on the left ;)
People drive on the left in Thailand and South Africa and they have just about the highest numbers of traffic deaths. Guyana and Uganda, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia and Malaysia all have very high crash and death ratios on the road and they all drive on the left. Left or right doesn't seem to matter. Yes the UK and Ireland and Japan and Australasia all have safe roads, but they are not the safest, they are out stripped by countries that drive on the right. Correlation does not imply causation and they isn't even a correlation here. I'm right handed, but I do many tasks better with my left hand because I only use my left hand for them. Once your brain is programmed a certain way it really doesn't matter if you're a rightly or a lefty.
Quintapus Those are all shitty countries.
I see the steering wheel-gear stick hand relationship as riding a bike or a horse. If you were to use a sword or any weapon while on them, provided you're right handed, you'd use them on your right hand, whilst leaving your left hand to do the steering. As a matter of fact, I've come to see too many people (mostly kids who have never driven a car) who do this, and who feel insecure if they do it with their other hand (bikes start wobbling). Why do I think this happens? Well, our dominant hands are great for fine, precise work; they're far more dynamic, whereas our non-dominant hand and arm are 'stiffer yet sturdier' (our non-dominant arm also tends to be stronger. It's just clumsy).
As for vision, if you're righthanded, and your dominant eye is your right one, sitting on the left side of the car will give your dominant eye the widest arc of vision, so you should be able to spot more potential threats more effectively.
Loved the video, though. Nice arguments. Keep it up!
DownHereInChile Just a fun opinion:
say you delivery news paper with a bike (or a horse) then you will want to drive in the right side, then you can easier to throw for the right side. If you drive on the left, both side a bit more difficult to throw :D
I'll remember this when I need to duel someone via car joust
DownHereInChile exaclty what i tried to mean in my comment. Driving with ur left hand just feels better, as u said same whn u start driving a bike (i still do), when driving one handed, right handed people usually use the left.
but manipulating the steering wheel is much easier than manipulating the gear-stick, meaning that it would be better to use your dominant hand for the more complicated task, also you learn to do things the way you are taught, so if someone was right handed but learned to drive left-hand-on-wheel, right-hand-on-stick then it would feel unnatural to drive the other way around because they didn't learn how to drive that way, their hands don't really know what to do
Barghest Blue controlling the gear stick becomes muscle memory after ~100ish hours driving. It is also far less critical in avoiding accidents. Gotta go with lindy on this one.
It may be less critical to avoiding accidents, but then you just put both hands on the wheel, simple. Also since the dominant eye also tends to correlate with the dominant hand, your view of whats ahead of you is more centered in the windshield so you can see more of whats ahead of you and gives a more complete view of sides of the roads without as much need to move your head.
Yes, I second your comments! This is exactly the points I was going to bring up. It is the whole point of driving schools.
The only time servo is an issue is when you're going really slow, i.e. when you're very unlikely to cause any serious harm. Once you go above 20km/h (something like this, been a while since I drove one) it's really no different than with servo.
you dont change gear to avoid an accident,you use the steering wheel and pedals, but admittedly both hands are on the wheel by that point]
You missed out the best part of why we drive on the left! When we still primarily used horses people would ride on the left hand side of the road so that if they needed to draw their sword they'd already be facing the right side.
+Joshua Talbot Forgive me if this is wrong, I'm sure I heard it somewhere before.
+Joshua Talbot I've heard this as well. The story also goes that Napoleon was a lefty and therefore made everybody ride on the right.
+Joshua Talbot Hear hear mate, weapon arm at the ready
+Joshua Talbot That was mainly because of mounting. Riders would mount their horses from the left. In order to not have to mount in the middle of the road, they'd use the left hand side.
+Joshua Talbot NCIS?
This is just silly. You're not supposed to drive around with your hand on the gearstick, but both hands on your steering wheel.
ZeroTheHero True, having driven LHD cars, I find that when changing gear in congested zones, at rush hour or 30mph town/city driving or rural windy lanes. I have far less control of the vehicle in an LHD than an RHD. It is that split second or that is the difference.
Asura R-R I don't really care what you think.
Asura R-R Yeah, hogwash.
Asura R-R It's hogwash. It might sound sensible but it isn't.
Asura R-R I actually can say it's hogwash without explaining why. I don't really CARE if you still go on believing what you just said. I don't and I don't need to convince myself any further. If you're interested to find out whether you're wrong or not, be my guest. Find the reason yourself.
This is not an academic institution.
Americans used to "drive" (wagons, horses) on the left until sometime in the 18th or 19th century when the Conestoga wagons became the oldie semi-trucks of that era. When driving a Conestoga wagon, one person sat in the wagon and guided the horses while another walked alongside the wagon to pull the massive hand brake when they stopped. Originally, since they drove on the left, the person would walk along the right side of the wagon to pull the brake. But since most people are right handed it was easier to drive the wagon on the right side of the road and walk along the left side of the wagon so you can pull the brake with your dominant right hand. I suspect that other nations followed this American example, but I have no proof of this.
Phil V 0
As somebody lives in Los Angeles and grew up traveling to Japan quite a bit, this video neatly explains a lot of very strong feelings which I've never really been able to fully articulate in regards to my anxieties about driving in a dense car-centric city with backwards cars. I suppose they were things I observed before fully educating myself in the actual physics/engineering behind city planning and cars and so forth, so I had a gut feeling with no rhetoric or framework to assuage it. Thank you very much for helping me out here, you have done a great thing for a humbly grateful man
I think you're confusing correlation and causation here. What seems much more likely to me is that there's just more of a culture of safe, cautious driving in the UK than in other countries. To prove that driving on the left is safer you'd need to look at all countries, control for other factors, and then compare the accident rates of those that drive on the right and those that drive on the left.
Pretty sound idea
*And* compare like with like! England population ~50 million, U.S. population is over 300 million.
@@KickyFut That _is_ like with like. It's per million miles, so it's population independent.
Miles? He was using deaths per year... By country(if memory serves me). If it was measuring how many casualties in percentage, it should be closer.
Ireland is really safe. We drive on the left.
Actually in the USA, we learn only to use one foot when driving. (At least thats what my grandfather told me.)
Also we probably have more car crashes because we nearly quadruple your population, so there's almost always more Americans in cars at a time than Brits.
Pahk the Cah in Hahvahd Yahd No, the figures I quoted are not affected by the population size. One foot? So you take a foot off the accelerator (gas) to press the clutch to change gear?
No, you use only one foot for the accelerator and you take it off to put it on the brake. I don't think we do anything with the left foot, and gears are changed either automatically or with a stick-shift, but more commonly nowadays, automatically.
Lindybeige Most automobiles sold in the USA come with automatic transmissions, but you can special order a vehicle with a standard transmission although that is rare.
Yeah, I think maybe the OP is too young to remember standard transmissions (which ironically enough are no longer standard in the US) and the fact that they did have a clutch. I'm pretty surprised his grandfather didn't mention anything about standard transmission vehicles either though.
But yeah, any car you buy here will by default have an automatic transmission. If you want a standard you often have to order it that way (as stated above) if it is offered that way and most likely pay more for it. I'm not sure it is even an option on most "normal" cars anymore, but it still seems to be available on sports cars. Here you are taught in Driver's Ed. to keep both hands on the wheel (not that anyone does, lol).
As for the actual subject matter, it is an interesting theory but pretty much any accident I have been involved in throughout my life seemed to be because of some stupid mistake or lack of attention on part of someone involved (including myself) and the side of the road that was being driven on would have had no affect. Besides, regardless of your dominant hand if you drive a standard transmission vehicle you will train yourself accordingly to do so as you drive the vehicle. If I were to start writing left handed (I am right handed) then it would be awful at first, but it would get better. One can train themselves to be ambidextrous. Ask just about any right handed person that has broken their right hand. lol So the precision or speed with which one can turn the wheel with their left hand will become moot at some point.
I've just spent a week in Ireland, driving around a 1000 kms on the left, so I can see some of your points - reaction time maybe better, couldn't measure it, but whatever. Got used to it fairly quickly, it was a nice change, and not at all hard, I recommend every right-side driver to try it out.
I don't agree with the necessity of the better hand on the wheel though - the wheel is quite limited in terms of movement, right or left, on a predetermined path, while at the gear shift a couple centimeters can make a difference, so you absolutely need the precision. Also my main issue was with the signals and the gear shift being on the same hand. You approach the intersection, signal the turn with your left, then reach for the shift with your left, 1st, 2nd, turn off the signal, 3rd... with your less precise, clumsy hand, instead of dividing it up between the two.
As an American, I drive on the right side of the road while eating french fries and using French to express my views of other drivers ability.
If I am in a good mood, I listen to music so good that it is revolutionary. :)
The higher incidence of American wrecks isn't because we drive on the right. It's partly because our culture glorifies recklessness and swagger. Check into those statistics and you'll see that a great deal of road deaths involve young people and intoxicated people (and often both). And it's partly because most American towns and smaller cities are physically spread out but have poor public transit, requiring private automobile use where in many other countries it would be easy to walk, bus, bike, or take a train. This reinforces the fact that people often drive while intoxicated.
Having said all that, as a left-hander I definitely appreciate having opposing traffic on my left side. It's much more natural and comfortable for me to deal with that regime. (Tangent: And as a prolific typist I greatly adore the QWERTY keyboard layout.)
+Josh Fredman Also your driving tests are a joke. No offense but really compared to most european nations a toddler could get a license in america.
+Archoncommando I studied for an hour before the test in the USA... and I passed with a %100 on the New York test
But I fully agree with you +Josh Fredman
But left-sided driving is still safer.
I don't think you have ever visited the UK.
British drivers drive further than American drivers because amenities and public services are further and industry requires commuting. Much of britains housing is in what is termed 'commuter settlements' where from residents would drive over 50 miles to work daily.
Whereas in the US people mostly live in the same conurbation they work and trade.
Britains public transport is not commuter friendly and is abysmal compared to Europe and the US. That would be because travelling predetermined routs is not commuter friendly.
Private vehicles are more necessary in the UK than in the US.
Like for like in the UK most road traffic incidents are caused by reckless driving and usually the agonist is a younger driver. Likewise car insurance in the UK is more expensive for younger drivers as it is in the US.
There is no difference in the culture between the UK and the US.
I hope you can read about this.
I am not Taylor Swift
step-cousins are living with their mom in america for a couple of years. One turned 16 a while ago and took a driving test. Told me what she had to do and buffled by the difference i asked her if that was the normal way to do that test in america. So she asked around and the people she knew at school confirmed it.
I was driving at 120mph at every opportunity in my career and I never had an accident.
I did 120 mph in the rain at night.
I did 100 mph on snow.
Just how reckless are you Americans if you are out recklessing me?
Actually, driving on the right developed here in America entirely separately from in France. Conestoga wagons, which were common in the 1700s and 1800s in America, were driven from a position on the left side of the wagon. Thus, these wagons drove on the right side of the road so the driver could see the road ahead and wouldn't be hit by tree branches. This started the custom of driving on the right in America before the French Revolution even took place.
RadioactivFly I hope you know that the French colonised USA back in early 1600s
Edward J. Napoleon wasn't alive back in the 1600s
Lindy’s point was that Napoleon changed the rules in France and then across all of Europe that he had conquered from left sided to right sided A) Since he was a power hungry git that did whatever he could get away with and B) He was left handed himself so why not. Before then France had indeed rode horses and driven carts on the left side whilst sitting on the right side like in Britain etc currently.
I know that's why our racetracks go counterclockwise.
yonderTheGreat if that’s the case then why wouldn’t we use the metric system?
“You europeans”. I think Lloyd is forgetting something.
the brits island is pretty much a self continent for bongs at this point.
he's also forgotten about left handed guitar players driving on the right side.
Only as much as you're forgetting what the terms "Europe" and "the continent" mean to Brits when speaking comparitively like this.
just when i think i know what you're going to say you come out with another gem of well researched and well thought out perfectly logical points. love this channel.
a gem? a GEM? "well-researched"?? Lmfao how dumb are you
Drive in the middle and everything is ok.
:)
so... everyone get a mclaren f1?
It's a compromise everyone can agree to :)
***** I should think there would be plenty of room freed up either side to allow for some pretty vigorous swerving
sign me the fuck up
I have read articles of left-handed people complaining they can't drive stick shift, because they have to shift with their off hand.
+Schwarzer Ritter That makes no sense seeing how people who what spent their who lives driving on the right drive just fine in the UK and vice versa. It's also the simplest task ever. Just put the shifter in one of six positions.
The Interface I guess it is the same people who can't write on spiralbound paper, because the wire hurts.
I can drive manual and I'm left handed.
+Schwarzer Ritter
weird, I'm a leftie and I find comfortable to just sit my hand in the shift stick while driving. I Don't even have to move my hand from the wheel. (I DO drive with both hands in their correct positions when the traffic conditions justify it)
+Schwarzer Ritter Same thought. Shifting requires more coordination than just keeping your car within the line.
Huh. I wonder what India, Southern Africa, and Australia all have in common that would make them follow this driving pattern...
And strange... a map of all these counties that drive on the left bears an uncanny resemblance to a map of counties that play cricket... (as represented by the International Cricket Council) I wonder what they have in common.
No but in all seriousness cricket is a game invented by the British to punish the countries they once colonized.
Can verify this, I live in Australia where we drive on the left. I experimented today by driving on the right and was in an accident almost immediately!
I'm a leftie, so I absolutely love right-side driving
Great idea! I shall from now on only drive on the left! ( lets hope all the other in sweden does this too tomorow )
now i don't have a car or a drivers license :P
+colapundarn Well.. We did change from left hand traffic to right hand traffic in the late 60s. So I think it would defeat the purpose of the change in the first place...
yeah... but say that to my car ;)
Have you ever seen that famous photo of all the car crashes the day Sweden changed?
I learned to drive in Australia, but moved to the US only a few years later (and I've driven professionally in the US for 25 years now)...so I've seen this story from both sides. And I have found the same thing: the right hand, being dominant, is so much better fine motor control as well as outright strength, so ideal for steering - and the left is still quite capable of handling a gearshift (or driving with an automatic transmission and holding a cup of coffee, if one is a bit of a troglodite.) And after all these years, it _still_ feels easier and more intuitive to steer with my right hand and shift with my left.
When I was young I was very disappointed that the steering wheel was on the left side, and then I was so happy when I was told that there are cars with steering wheels on the right side
I was going to site India (left side driving) as a example of driving ineptness but then remembered China (right side driving) as being just as bad. Being born and raised in post war Japan I remember my dad always complaining how bad drivers were in Japan (left side driving). Then we moved to Hawaii (right side driving), and dad started saying the drivers in Hawaii were even worse than Japan. I have come to the conclusion that bad drivers exist everywhere regardless of which side of the road is driven on. Things only got worse with the invention of the smart phone. Every erratic driver I have passed lately is seen either texting of talking on a smart phone. The smart phone is making people dumber.
Now I'm waiting to hear that imperial units are superior to metric.
+KajuneK8 It makes more sense if your numbering system is hexadecimal or dozenal which is wildly superior to decimal systems for many the same reasons metric is superior to the imperial system as we have it.
Suddenly 12 inches in a foot and 3 foot to a yard(a reasonably useful measurement like the meter) Miles break the pattern a little bit but still can be dealt with reasonably with 12 and it's factors. divide 5280 by 12 you get 440 (quarter mile in feet) Divide it by 6 you get 880, divide it by 3 you get 1760.
IF we said the mile were 3456 feet (which happens to be 1.05 Kilometers) and corrected everything between mile an yard we should have as follows:
12 inches in a foot
3 Foot to a yard
12 Yards is a chain
12 chain to a furlong
12 furlong is a mile
Consider that you have 12 knuckles on 4 fingers. Your hand effectively becomes a simple abacus able to divide and multiply by factors of 12.
Now I'm going to bed before I cry myself to sleep after making up this crap.
+Ariel Solomon No, you pretty much got it right. Imperial units work great for base 12, and base 12 is much better than base 10. It's just using imperial units in base 10 that's stupid.
+DynamicWorlds
Base ten seems to work better than base twelve where I live - most of us have only ten fingers, not twelve.
***** each finger has 3 joints, you have 4 fingers. 12 joints on each hand giving you the ability to count to 24 with both hands.
I am not a toon, I've got five fingers on each hand.
No, I won't drive on the left.
You will...
He wont!
You'll drive on the left, and you'll LIKE it. Or no dessert.
Never!!
South Africa has a terrible road safety rate and we drive on the left. Well we are meant to. The local mini bus taxis drive wherever the hell they want and that is one of the main problems here
visited turkey a few times. I imagine the sheer insanity might be similar. I returned to the US and each time I look around and decide that there is just about no traffic because less than 99% of the road has a vehicle on it. Actually felt extremely safe here in comparison.
The argument was that driving on the left may improve reaction times by a fraction of a second, not that it would magically bring order to the chaotic roads of a developing nation. Fatalities are also particularly high in SA due to the higher speed of traffic flow compared to other developing nations, and the high number of pedestrian fatalities caused by poor road safety education.
As a British ex-pat who has driven on both sides of the road, I say there's no difference in modern vehicles. There may hev been historical reasons to use one side or the other - the only real difference is that Brit get to use their right hand when interacting with drive-through services.
Which hand is on the wheel and which is on the gear shift? Unless I'm shifting gears, both hands on the wheel, so that's irrelevant.
My UK driving test was an hour long. I did IAM too. My US driver's road test was about 7 minutes, and most of that was at a red light listening to the examiner drooling over my accent. Back then there was no written test in there UK (pre-photo licenses too, so my license is still the pink sheet of A4!) whereas Ohio has a written test, signs test, eye test and cone maneuverability test. The UK test had a driving portion, parallel park, reverse around the corner, turn in the road using forward and reverse gears, etc
The big difference is that US roads are too big, and there are too many lanes. It gives drivers a sense that they have some bestowed right to proceed uninterrupted in their lanes at all times because they usually can, and woe betide anyone that gets in their way - drivers tend to defend their right of way by driving in a selfish manner. UK roads tend to require drivers to work together to get past parked cars etc, so people tend to have a sense that driving is a co-operative venture, so are much more willing to yield, slow down, let people in/past etc. That is my observation from a quarter of a century of driving split between England and Ohio.
"Almost 1 in 3 drivers around the world drives on the left" and then he proceeds to list mostly a bunch of former English colonies or places that were under English rule. India alone accounts for about half of that 1 in 3. Next we get a list of (good) reasons why it is not silly to drive on the left. One really doesn't have much to do with the other. The reason 1 in 3 drive on the left is due to history not because it is better in anyway, the same as why 2 in 3 drive on the right. Kind of 'lopsided' to mention one but not the other.
He mentioned napoleons conquest which is a good reason, the us also does it because you used to like the French more than you liked us
With stick shifts you have a good point I’ve never heard before.
Although it doesn’t always apply to automatics.
Still, the right eye makes sense too.
His stick shift argument doesn't make sense because you're not supposed to drive with your hand on the stick all the time.
@@Liggliluff doesn't really matter, the places where accidents happen the most are traffic lights, turnings and roundabouts, places where your dominant hand has a high chance of being occupied
Left means clockwise around roundabouts, which is the intuitive ‘forward’ motion around a circle
As a Left-Handed, Stick-shift driving, Left-Eye dominate driver in the United States. I feel that the vehicle was build around me.
I live in a country where people drive on the right side of the road, and I use a stick shift. I tried driving a right hand drive car in Malaysia once. I couldn't get the hang of using my left hand to shift. Using your dominant hand to steer is irrelevant, as steering is best accomplished anyway with both hands on the wheel. It's better to use your dominant hand to hunt for the gearshift since you need to keep your eyes on the road at all times.
I've driven on both sides. I didn't find driving on the left easier or safer. It wasn't hard; I adapted very quickly.
I would rather shift right handed.
In Texas I started driving on the left and using Km/h on my speedo, they gave me a DUI
I think you've forgotten that there once was a time when there was no such thing as a gear shift, and now there is a time where there is not one again. So yes, it may have been the case that from the time of the beginning of the gear shift until the time of the invention of automatic transmission, the British had the best idea. Also, most of those places you cited were British colonies, so driving on the left was just as much an imposition of conquest.
The reason British drivers are less likely to die is because you drive really, really slowly compared to Americans and other people in less population dense countries. It's a lot easier to die flying along a highway filled with hundreds of other people than it is plunking along on a city street, even if there are just as many people around.
To be honest, it seems highly unlikely to me that it really makes any difference in terms of safety or efficiency. Vehicle controls aren't really delicate enough for handedness to make much of a difference.
About the British conquest thing - actually it is beneficial to everyone to drive on the left since the time of horses and carts, or even just walking on the left, for similar reasons.
If you were approaching someone on a road and you didn't trust them, it benefits you to walk on the left because they will be on your right, a.k.a most probably your swordarm, as it will be easier to defend yourself.
I thought Napoleon changed it to the right when he took over because he himself was left handed, but it may make more sense if he actually did it as a way of showing resentment of the British, after all they essential were his biggest rival
Steven Hackett Nowadays from a self-defense standpoint it's better to walk on the right. You wouldn't want your enemy close to your firearm, which if you're right-handed will be on your right.
The problem with that is that by time firearms had become a big thing there was already a system developed for driving on the left, and changing that would have massive consequences, as you'd need to change every single road and sign overnight, EVERYBODY would need to be informed, certain habits have to be unlearned , and the whole thing would cost more money then it would take to make everyone in Britain (or pretty much any left-driving country) a millionaire.
You make an unfair comparison between British cities and American highways there. I've visited the USA on numerous occasions and have been "unfortunate" enough to have driven within the city. In New York you are literally trapped in a traffic jam for what seems like hours! You are better off walking or taking the train/tram metro. Also there are "highways" in Britain too, we call them motorways!
We have similar speed limits too! In the USA, a speed limit of 30 mph in urban areas and 35 mph on unpaved rural roads is enforced. The speed limit for county paved roads is 45 mph. All other 2 lane roads are limited to 55 mph. The interstate limit is 70 mph while other highways are limited to 65 mph.
Now In the UK, the limits are 30 mph in Urban areas, 60 mph on a 'single carriageway' and 70 mph on 'dual carriageways', which are literally the same thing as the American highways differing in the number of lanes respectively, and also 70 mph on motorways, which are like our version of your 'interstate' highways.
Visual references...
British motorway:
media.social.s-msn.com/images/blogs/001e0071-0000-0000-0000-000000000000_4335ba6f-ea4d-4818-bcee-7693ba9096a9_20111208164006_Motorway900x540_13.jpg
An American 4 lane highway, like an interstate:
www.visualphotos.com/photo/2x3869638/aerial_view_of_vehicles_moving_on_a_multiple_lane_highway_interstate_4_orlando_florida_usa_gwt172043.jpg
Therefore, I can conclude that we essentially drive at the same speeds on essentially the same type of roads - rendering your argument void! Therefore, actually Lindy and we Brits (and co.) are seemingly correct in our theory regarding which side of the road to drive on. The statistics don't tell lies, pal. ;)
Luke J The statistics don't tell lies, but the only statistics you've shown are that the theoretical speed limits in Britain are the same as the theoretical speed limits in the US. You've failed to establish the frequency with which British people use motorways versus the frequency with which Americans use highways. You've also failed to establish that British people drive cars as frequently as Americans.
It turns out that Americans spend ~20% more time in cars than Brits:
www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/8287098/Britons-spend-more-time-driving-than-socialising.html
www.ask.com/question/average-time-spent-in-a-car
(Couldn't find a better source for America in the amount of time I was willing to spend on this.)
Have you tried to drive a car with the steering wheel on the left side?
Changing gears with your right hand is more comfortable and faster, not only because most people are right handed, but also you put low gears, by pulling gear stick towards you (which is more comfortable), and low gears are used more often.
I agree that british roads are quite safe, but the indian roads are one of the most dangerous in the world, with 207.5 deaths per 100,000 motor vehicles annually, for comparison, Norway has 4.4 deaths, UK 6.2, so it does not prove anything.
Honestly since I started driving a manual transmission car as an American, I have found that I have much more confidence in my left arm and hand to steer precisely and quickly.
As a leftie, I can ignore your entire argument.
Same
I don't really think that driving on whichever side of the road makes as much a difference as you think. There are a lot of other differences between the UK and the US and other countries that could be relevant to the data. I'm not really sure how you'd even study such a thing scientifically - there's not really any way to have an effective controlled comparison.
Also, most cars these days are automatic transmissions; makes the whole handedness thing pretty irrelevant. A difference in the small percentage (6.7%, google tells me) of manual drivers can't possibly explain the difference between the US and UK data. And eyes don't have nearly the asymmetry as hands do (and overlap greatly in their fields of view anyway). I just don't buy it.
You're quite wrong about dominant eyes being irrelevant. There are differences in perception of speed, distance and acuity. It's not just the eye, it's the "wiring" of the brain to eye. The first thing the army does is to establish a soldier's dominant-eye, as a small subset of people have a dominant eye that's different to their dominant hand. It's the dominant eye that's important for a soldier aiming a weapon, rather than their dominant hand operating the rifle. Consequently I find Lindy's argument very persuasive that driving on the right is ill-suited to a primarily right-handed population. When you think about it, there's no rationale for driving on either side - other than keeping one's sword hand free to engage the oncoming highwayman! - Until the advent of the motor-car, meaning that we established which side different countries drive BEFORE adopting the technology where driving on the left is measureably safer. By which time it was fast becoming too late to change.
@@Fidd88-mc4sz it has been ten years since I left this comment and I am no longer invested in this argument but I am here to say no lol you're wrong, driving does not require the kind of precision that firing a rifle does. Success in driving requires broad awareness, not hyper focus. Firing a rifle is like the opposite of driving.
@@Fidd88-mc4sz oh also I forgot to mention (although I see I did mention it ten years ago) that when driving you use both eyes, unlike in rifle shooting. So that's why the army cares about eye dominance but drivers dont
@@DontMockMySmock Both "swareness" and precision are required, the latter especially if something untoward happens, such as an unwise over-take of an opposite direction vehicle. I take your point that in general "broad awareness" is enough most of the time. But that's not the scenario Lindy laid out, is it? He was speaking to those occasions where there's nearly an accident. Finally, the reason the army test for which eye is dominant, is because whilst it's physiologically essentially just a mirror-image of the the other one, neurologically they are different, and having someone shoot with their non-dominant eye usually results in them being unable to hit the broad-side of a barn. Fine muscle-control when restricted to the non-dominant eye is likewise degraded. Which again, is Lindy's point, as the left-eye - (the non-dominant eye) is the one with which US drivers first see an obstacle when over-taking. The reverse is true for drivers who drive on the left. Hence the disparity of accident rates.
@@Fidd88-mc4sz show me the evidence that eye dominance has ANYTHING to do with accident rates.
In ye olden days when two people approached each other on the road they moved to their left, so that their weapon hand was ready to defend themselves against attack.
In Britain most commercial haulage was conducted by water. On the continent most commercial haulage was conducted on land by wagon.
A wagon master would sit on the left side so that his right, whip hand, was in the middle of the ox team. This enabled the wagon master to reach the left lead ox, and the right lead ox with equal ease.
When two wagons passed, they passed on the driver's side, the right side of the road, because this meant that the wagon driver was on the closest side of the wagon to the passing traffic. This avoided collisions and entanglements with other wagons.
In ye olden days armies crossed on the right as they searched the cover of their shields
Adamast History is full of armies "passing each other". Let's find the enemy and then walk past them looking at their shields.
In the US, we supposedly started on the right because you could keep a pistol in your right hand while passing a stranger on the road.
I (in the US) tend to use my left hand as a stabilizing tool (while driving straight and not doing much) and my right hand when I have to do any navigation, which is approximately the opposite.
Curious that the list of countries that drive on the left is pretty much the same as the list of former British colonies.
Almost every new car has an automatic gearshift. That's in America at least.
+Joe Kennedy Most cars in the world have manual gearshift.
Like I said, in America only 6.5% of new cars sold are manual. I don't know the global percentages though.
+Joe Kennedy Of all the time I spent in France and the UK I saw maybe 3 automatics. And one of them was owned by a French woman with only one arm so.
+Joe Kennedy The only automatics I've ever been in belonged to my grandmother, and a day trip driving school for twelve year olds.
I fully admit that the side of the road someone drives on doesn't matter, and eventually "stick-shifts" will be pointless, but currently I'm surprised Americans aren't more embarrassed they all drive automatics. From what I can see decent driving requires the control given by a manual gearbox.
How on earth does automatic make decent driving impossible? It's just a cultural thing. For some reason most Americans have accepted automatic as normal and manual as the unusual one. I don't really know why.
Quite a good argument.
Convinced me.
Sadly changing the system now would cause more accidents because we are accustomed to doing things one way.
3:21 - Where do you get this info? As I recall, most single seat racing cars had/have a right hand gearchange, & tbh a racing driver generally doesn´t opt to change gear at an inopportune steering moment, the are in the correct gear for steering input most of the time
I think you may be interested in how right side driving originated in the United States. it had to do with carriage drivers wanting to both be near the center of the road (to see oncoming traffic) and drive the oxen with their right hand (their dominant one).
Awesome Dude Ox drawn carriages?
Jim Fortune i just named a random animal, it could be horses aswell
Last time I was in Britain was 2007. Hopefully it's still there. Anyway, I rented a car and drove from London to Cornwall to visit my Aunt. I drove because the notorious and insane British woman I was in, I mean with. Okay, in, who may be imprisoned again, or not, couldn't drive a manual transmission. What I found amazing is I could rent a car with my questionable U.S. driver's license without even getting a pamphlet on British road signs and signals. I learned as I went, with the crazy women informing me what those squiggly lines meant, a second or two past the point the information would be useful. Letting me, ill-informed with a known nutter felon riding shotgun, doesn't seem the safest policy for road safety in Britain. Also, I'm a fugitive myself as I just found the £50 ticket I got outside the Tate St. Ives that I thought I lost. I will fight extradition. Although, if someone can assure me I can pay this without ending up in the Brit version of Gitmo (which is probably Gitmo) I would appreciate it.
Don't see why it should be a problem. Signals are signals. More or less the same in every country. I don't know how US licenses are, but in Europe (from what I have seen at least) everyone takes their driving licenses with manual. It is assumed that you know how to manage a gearing stick. I stated driving on the right (European license at the time) been in the UK for nearly a couple of years now, and never had any problems... And I started driving properly o the left in London, mind you! It is more a thing of getting used to it and go extra carefully meanwhile. I agree that a crazy co-pilot doesn't help much though.
I can't comment anything on the fine, but I doubt it would be something very major. Pay the thing with interests (not cheap probably), maybe appeal that you are a foreign, lost the ticket, something like that. THat's what I would do, at least. :-) Hope it helps!
esabria
the US driving test is a joke (says the guy who learned to drive in Britain before emigrating at crazy woman point). No emergency stops, no real manoeuvrability test, no turn in the road, no main road driving, and it takes about ten minutes. This is largely because the US driving licence is more like an ID card than a statement of competence.
I keep randomly running into semi-popular RUclipsrs in unrelated-to-them comment sections! Woo!
Werrf1 Yeah they will let any idiot drive here!
Werrf1 Apparently you didn't take your driving test in Worcester, MA... they make you drive through a 6-way intersection! Not all tests are the same.
Also, Lindybeige didn't take drunk driving and texting while driving into account... U.S. highly abuse the drinking... and the texting...
There’s countries that drive on the left, and there’s countries that’ve been to the moon.
Put there by a Nazi war criminal of European descent.
The problem being of course that this preference is so entrenched in the roadways and in how cities are designed and laid out that it simply would never be a possibility for either side to change.
I feel it's unfair to pull the americans into a comparison about anything relating to deaths or damage, especially when compared to a European nation.
Former British colonies do as British, that's natural. So many factors affect accidents statistics, you cannot use this as an argument.
And I think the argument can be reversed. Indeed it is easy to "reparameter" an arm for one specific task (holding the wheel). It's way harder for several tasks (changing gears, putting on the radio, changing the temperature of the AC, and so on). So the "best arm" is actually best used... as the miscelaneous tasks arm. Drive on the right, it's better.
I love these videos. Why don't you have more views? I want to learn how to use the long bow. Where should I look to make the purchase? Keep up the great work.
My wife and I lived in the UK for a couple of years in the 90's and then moved back to the US. Because we were in the UK for over a year, we had to pass the test for British driving licenses (or licences). I am convinced that very few Americans could pass the British test and I also noticed that in the UK, you have to be retested at 70. The Brits drive little death-traps for cars at very high speeds yet have fewer accidents. I hate to say it, but British drivers are simply better at driving than Americans. The UK also is more rigorous in going after drunk drivers than in most other countries. Few Brits continue driving past 70 when their licenses expire but here in the US, we have drivers in their 80's and 90's who really should switch to using Uber.
let me show you why you're wrong:
if you drive on the left side of the road than you don't drive on the right side of the road.
if you don't drive on the right side of the road than you ride on the wrong side of the road.
easy.
What you call cars we call go-carts and give them to our kids at 8 years old. We are hurtling down the road at 75 mph in half ton vehicles through single states that are larger than England surrounded by people with no proper training. Think maybe those are bigger factors?
Actually, the highways in most countries have the lowest accident rate in comparison with the chaos and bloodlust of the cities. On any highway, most cars travel at a rather high speed but they all travel at more or less the same speed in the same direction and there are no traffic lights, no same-level crossings, etc.
In the cities, traffic is coming from left, right, front *and* back. Speed differences are very high because a car that is waiting for the traffic light is going 0 km/h while a car with a driver in a hurry, may be speeding a bit and go 60 or even 70 km/h. Now the speed limit in cities is 50 km/h. It was calculated by the wise men who research these things, that an 'impact velocity' of 50 km/h is enough to kill you, even with safety belts etc. Of course, most drivers who realize they are going to crash, will brake frantically so their final impact velocity is less than 50 km/h. But what do you think will happen if someone in a hurry runs a red traffic light then collides into the left side (driver's side in Europe) of another car? He's a goner (the driver of the car that was hit).
The German Autobahn, where drivers may drive as fast as they can on most sections, actually has much lower casualty rate than the American highways. Maybe because in the US of A, you are not allowed to change lanes, you're not allowed to drive faster than 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) and other restrictions. So drivers tend to become bored and try to use the phone while driving, drinking, looking for stuff in the glove compartment, etc. etc.
In Germany, drivers may on average drive at a speeds of 80 - 100 miles per hour but if they really want to speed (which they are allowed to), they may go as fast as 130 miles per hour or even faster. But there are important safety rules: fast traffic drives on the left lane, 'slow' traffic (doing about 75 miles per hour) must remain on the rightmost lane. Also, fast traffic have the responsibility to spot slower traffic up ahead so when they see other cars in the distance, they will decelerate a bit untill they see the left lane is free so they can roar past. In Holland, we are only allowed to do 80 miles per hour on our highways (130 km/h).
mm
shanes channel In a nutshell: we drive faster on average here on the continent. 75 mph is about the speed limit on Dutch highways while in Germany they have no speed limit on most parts of the Autobahn. And the accident rate in Germany is much lower than in the States.
I am actually related to a German woman and from speaking to her am sure that many of the differences are laws and training. People here drive like morons. Add in the factors I already mentioned and see how you do on our roads. These fools will kill you. I could drive the Autobahn in my sleep. These countries you mention are the size of states here. Drive across this country. BTW the right side of the road is still right. Hence right!
AudieHolland You're allowed to change lanes on American highways...
I appreciate the idea that your good hand on the wheel and your other on the stick would help. And it probably does for those in Europe were manuals are more common. But you've got to remember that in America, most cars are automatic, so that's not as much of a problem as you might think at first.
In the states, driving on the right side of the road is inherited from the days of covered wagons which had hand brakes on the right side. Driving them on the right side of the road allowed someone on the side of the road to pull the brake if a wagon got out of control
You're just mad because Napoléon.
I don't know what I expected. I guess I should've expected the usual British "we do things the right way" BS. No matter. Cars will drive themselves soon.
I look forward to your video on how Britain's two-fingered "up yours" gesture is superior to everyone else's "up yours" gesture.
+Tysto That's easy, it uses two fingers, so it's twice as insulting. Also the arm swing is typically twice the distance of the US version, so that's another factor of 2. So by the logic that is present in this particular video, that would put the two finger salute at 22 times as superior to the one finger salute and also it causes less fatalities...because reasons.
Is now a good time to mention Winston Churchill? (le two years later)
It's funny, when told "we do things the right way" and then provide evidence and statistics to demonstrate it, you still can't accept it and react by trying to insult people....
I wonder if this explains the homicide rate in the US?
I'm ambidextrous, but when I was travelling in SE Asia, I got used to people driving on the left very quickly. It seemed odd when I came back to the States.
I were drunk in England, and i were so confused by everyone driving on the left. the ammount of cars I nearly entered on the wrong side. and the dizzyness it caused me, and the feeling of fear of everyone else being drunk and me being the only sober one, made me just sit down and get another pint.
There are several things to consider that make compariing the traffic accidents of the US with Britain stupid, the main and dominate one being that in the US, the majority of the population drives everyday, everywhere they go, for 10's, sometimes 100's of miles. This *is not* a thing in Britain in the same way. There are not 100's upon 100's of thousands of people driving 70+ MPH to get *everywhere* they go in Britain, while in America, that's a thing. That's going to skew the hell out of the stats. Americans, for the vast majority, don't "pop down" to the store to pick up a loaf of bread on foot. That, however, *is* a thing in Britain. Americans have to get in a car, and drive, sometimes for 10's of miles, to get a store, and their work, and their schools, to their families and friends, and then back home, everyday, day in and day out. I used to drive for 1 1/2 hours each day on a major highway to get to my daily job, or about 100km there, and then 100km back. This is common.This large difference in social behavior in general is going to make one hell of a difference in accident totals.
Well, considering I've never caused a wreck or anything, have a clean driving record, and have been driving longer than you've been on this planet.. I doubt that very much. But whatever makes you sleep better. ^^
wow. Okay, so that's your best effort at trolling. Hmm.. aiite. Well, in that case, you work on it, and get back to me when you've got it down better. GL =]
The statistics per million vehicle miles, so that is actually counter to your argument. America has a lot of very big and very straight roads, with people travelling larger distances, surely a million miles of that is less likely to cause accidents than a million miles of twisty british roads, roundabouts, rusty drivers popping down to shops etc.
Actually, no, it proves my argument. Lindybeige's stats are based on the
*number of vehicle miles*, not the speed of those vehicles during those
miles, or the population density of the areas. In places like Houston,
LA, New York, Dallas, etc, people are driving *immensely* faster,
merging into traffic from entrance ramps at 70 MPH, going around cloverleafs, (or spaghetti junctions, if you perfer), switching lanes, and all this is
happening at 55-95 MPH in most places, depending on the area. People
drive faster in the states, for longer distances, and not just once in a
while, but everyday. That's going to create a huge discrepancy in the
amount of accidents *per million vehicle miles*. The amount of trips per
day, the distance traveled per trip, the congestion of traffic during
those trips, and the speed at which that driver and all other drivers on
the road are traveling isn't factored into the stats presented. Those
factors make a huge difference when talking about this particular
subject though. It's the same reason you can't compare one country's
stats, such as the US, to anothers, such as China, and just look at the
raw data. It doesn't work. Congestion, the fact that more people are on
motorcycles, number of pedestrians in the road, etc, make the situation
different for China than in the US. It's not as simple as just
"accidents per million vehicle miles". That's oversimplifying the
situation and leaving out a ton of pertinent data. They're not
compariable in that way. It's like talking about the so-called "wage gap" and leaving out personal choices like children, career path, and hours worked.
+SyKo McAwesomeness Traveling on freeways/motorways are safer. If you're traveling at 60mph on the freeway for an hour, it's the equivalent of traveling 30mph for two hours. Most accidents happen at junctions and traffic lights, on the freeway/motorway there's the less accidents as all you need to worry about is merging and overtaking, it's much simpler and the relative speed between you and other cars is small. Also population density is literally 8 times greater in the UK. You sound like you're making up excuses for America's road deaths. It's not as bad as Lindy states, it's actually 7.1 deaths per billion km vs the UK's 3.6, the reason is likely looser driving tests and regulation. Also driving is pretty expensive for younger people on the UK, insurance is often more than your first car!
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
"Driving on the right only spread through Napoleonic conquest!!"
..."India, South Africa, Australia and Cyprus drive on the left side afterall"
Lmao Lloyd I love you but sometimes I don't think you even think about what comes out of your mouth.
Left handed American here. I drive an automatic so it doesn't even matter, but if I did drive a manual then I would prefer left hand on wheel, right hand on stick anyway. But seeing as 9 out of 10 drivers aren't like me, I understand your point completely. Catering to the preferences of the 90% would make our roads quite a bit safer for everyone.
Judging from your explanation, I as a lefty would be screwed when driving in the UK.
Albeit I was able to cope pretty well with driving on the left when travelling to the isles. Always took me just a few minutes of deliberately remembering to stay on the correct side of the road on the first day to get that sorted out.
Bow before us ambidextrous masters of the road.
***** Must have been hard to read something you pulled out of your ass, hope you wiped it off first. ;)
***** The reason is that both halves of the brain are sort of 'fighting' for dominance, leaving less processing capacity for things like academics.
When Sweden changed from the left to the right side the where a lot less accidents.
For a little while, and it was because everyone was driving so carefully because of the weird new system
The Scandinavians are very good drivers anyway, from what I have seen while being there.
To be honest, prior to the change we were driving right-hand ("American style") traffic vehicles on left-hand ("UK style") traffic roads, so it was hard for drivers to estimate the distance to the opposite lane. Hence the reduction in traffic accidents once we shifted to driving on the right.
In 2010 there was a massive grudge match between Germany and Greece during the World Cup games which everybody was watching The roads in Germany were so empty that I was able to drive 6km home on the left side of the road, which I did just for fun and because I could. I did not encounter and single other car on the main road.
I'm a British person who always resented driving on the left, but this video has convinced me.
I am guessing he does not actually drive very much.
I'm guessing this video is hogwash and poppycock.
Nude Jawn I'm guessing you drive on the right?
British people forget how massive the USA is. My state, which is a pretty average sized state, is about as large as your whole country. Our roads cover huge distances that people try to speed through, and our people are more aggressive in general and especially behind the wheel. Also, almost no one drives a standard anymore. The advantages of Briton over the US in car wrecks are similar to the advantages that Briton holds in education. The culture is just more careful overall and puts more emphasis on the slow but steady method that leads to academic success.
You should see Texas if you think it's bad where you are. I'm from Illinois, where driving is decent. I recently moved south and it's like they just give a license to anyone. Nobody uses turn signals, most speed rediculously and people, in general, drive stupidly. I was on the highway once and this lady just stops in the middle of the road. WTF?! It's these things that cause accidents. Not the side we drive on.
Brian Mulhair My experience suggests that people who are not from your hometown always drive more poorly. I suspect there may be a common factor in that though.
Also, you say Illinois, but that's a big area. Do you mean southern rural Illinois? Northern urban Illinois? Both?
I'm from Chicago. I realize I made a rather general statement
sssr98 if your referring to the stats at the end of the video, that takes into account the population differences between the two countries. so the argument of size/population means nothing (exception for maybe the factor of how long each driver spends on the road perhaps? fatigue/time on round increases chance of human error)
sssr98 This is the silliest thing I've ever read. Also, Australia is bigger than the USA.
didn't I hear somewhere a study that driving on the right increases wind vortices or something like that
We had a party called the Rhinoceros Party that planned on changing driving from the right side to the left, but gradually, buses and trucks the first year.