Which side of the road do they drive on?
"Keep right" sign on a dirt road on the Snæfellsnes peninsula of Iceland. Photo by Brian Lucas.		Edited by Brian Lucas, lucas@travel-library.com. Last updated: September 2003 Part of the Rec.Travel Library. Contents Introduction Historical questions The list of countries Border crossings Changing from one side to the other The cars are different too What about trains? What about boats? What about pedestrians? What about aircraft? Population distribution Road network distribution

This is an attempt to list which side of the road people drive on around the world, and to find some reasons why.

The most authoritative reference that I am aware of on this subject is a book called The Rule of the Road: An International Guide to History and Practice by Peter Kincaid (Greenwood Press, 1986; 239 pages; ISBN 0-313-25249-1), available from the publisher at http://info.greenwood.com/books/0313252/0313252491.html. The Rule of the Road contains a lot of details about why various countries use one side of the road or the other and how they have switched between them. I have relied on Kincaid's book for many of the historical questions in this document and have referenced him accordingly. The list of countries in this document is not taken from Kincaid; it includes some additional territories as well as being more recently updated.

This list has been compiled and contributed to by many people over the years. One of the early maintainers was Dan Jacobson. I obtained it around 1991 by way of alt.folklore.urban and with help from many people I have been updating and expanding it ever since. This document relies heavily on the contributions of readers who send in their observations. Thanks to Mohammed Alquwaizani, Norman Bartlett, George Birch, Alex Boster, Daniel Bowen, James F. Boylan , Mark Brader, Louise Bremner, Bill Choisser, Jens Brix Christiansen, Douglas Clark, David Clement, Rui Gustavo Crespo, Charles DeBrosse, Joe DeRose, Ron Dohmen, Jay Doty, Jim Dubel, Rob Dvorak, David Easton, Mike Elwell, Sergey Fedosov, Sander Feinberg, Joe Flake, Alan Flavell, Chris Garrett, Lynne Geisel, Bob Goudreau, Anders Hanquist, The Henry Ford Museum, Nicholas Hodder, David Hoole, Don Howard, Wayne Huffman, Justin Jih, Trevor Jordan, Keith, Mark King, Jeremy Langdon, Paul Erik Leopold, Bill Lockhart, Edwin Man, Brandt Maxwell, Aaron Moreau-Cook, David Morgan, Pete Murdie, Thomas Murphy, Andrew Myles, David Newgreen, Marco Polito, Clint Rodgers, Malcolm Roe, Stewart Rosenberger, Lynn Garry Salmon, Jim Sangster, Michael Scotts, Red Shannon, Anton Sherwood, Ivan Smith, Ben Varner, Bernd Wechner, Jim West, Ken Westmoreland , Brendan Whyte, Howard Wilson, and Eric Zimmerman for sending in comments.

Historical questions

In answering these historical questions, I have relied heavily on Peter Kincaid's book, The Rule of the Road. Please refer to the book for further details.

Why do some countries drive on the right and others on the left?

Most people are right-handed, which leads to a natural tendency to favour one side of the road or another depending on the means of transportation being used. The most important factor seems to be the relative dominance of different types of animal-drawn carts and wagons.

Walking: keep right. Most people have a natural tendency to keep to the right. Right-handed swordsmen may prefer to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to and their scabbard farther from an opponent, and to reduce the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people.

Riding a horse: keep left. A right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse, and it would be very difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (which would be worn on the left). It is safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road. Horsemen armed with swords prefer to keep left of each other in order that their sword arm is nearer their opponent. This also makes it easier to offer one's right hand in friendship.

Light armoured jousting division competion, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, July 2000. Photo from the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts

Jousting: keep right. Jousting knights held their lances in their right hands, and it is sometimes assumed that they must have therefore ridden on the left, as swordsmen did. (Kincaid's book makes this error.) In fact, riders in jousting contests rode on the right (or if you prefer, pass their opponent left shoulder to left shoulder), hold the lance in the right hand, and aim by pointing it to their left, across the horse's neck. See, for example, photographs of a joust at a tournament from the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts, the Free Lancers of the Cimmerian Combatives, or the article "how to joust" from the About.com Medieval History section. I have only found one exception to this: a mention of the southern Italian style of jousting as described by the Free Lancers. Thanks to Paul Erik Leopold for pointing out the misconception.

Leading a horse or a cart: keep right. It appears to be a universal practice that people lead horses with the right hand while walking on the left side of the horse. To best control the horse and to avoid collisions between wide carts, it is best for the person leading the horse or cart to walk between the vehicle and oncoming traffic, thus keeping the cart or horse to the right. This also facilitates conversations between people meeting, and it is more comfortable for the person walking to be in the centre of the road than to be at its edge.

Wagon teams with postilion riders: keep right. In some countries, teams of horses pulling a wagon were driven by a person riding one of the horses in the team. This is called postilion control. A right-handed rider mounts from the left and controls the team with a whip held in the right hand, and therefore must mount the left-rear horse of the team. From this position, the driver has the best view of the distance between his vehicle and oncoming traffic by keeping to the right.

Wagon teams driven from the wagon: keep left. In some places, teams of horses pulling a wagon were driven by a person sitting on the wagon. A right-handed driver controls the team with a whip held in the right hand, and so must sit on the far right-hand side of the vehicle, or the whip will hit the vehicle and anyone else seated on the wagon. From the right-hand side of the vehicle, the driver finds it easiest to maintain separation with oncoming traffic by keeping to the left. It is also easier to quickly turn the team to the left than to the right if the whip is in the right hand, so it is better to keep left so that a quick left turn can be made off the road in case of a potential collision.

The choice of sides seems to have been governed by the time of introduction of these different modes of transportation and their relative numbers, as well as by social and political influence. Most often, left-hand riding was the initial standard. In areas where carts and postilion riders became dominant, right-hand driving was adopted. In areas where wagons driven from the vehicle became dominant, left-hand driving remained the norm.

The next logical question, of course, is why different countries adopted different types of vehicles. Kincaid gives few clues to the answer, providing in some cases a chronology, but no broadly applicable theory. For example, the passenger coach (a wagon driven from a seat on the vehicle) appears to have originated in Hungary, so its earlier appearance there reinforced left-hand driving in much of central Europe. In France, on the other hand, cart-drivers and postilion riders dominated traffic so that the later introduction of wagons driven from the vehicle did not change the established pattern.

Did the pope decree left-hand driving in Europe?

Probably not. It is commonly believed that left-hand driving was legislated across Europe by papal decree in 1300. However, Kincaid states that he could find no records of such a Europe-wide decree. To the contrary, he finds evidence that Pope Boniface VIII ordered pilgrims on the Bridge of St. Angelo en route to and from St. Peter's Basilica in the jubilee year of 1300 to keep to the right.

Did France change sides of the road in rebellion against papal authority?

Probably not. This is a common belief, but Kincaid, besides refuting the existence of any papal order pertaining to the rule of the road in Europe, finds no evidence that left-hand driving was ever common in France. It appears likely that France has always driven on the right. Nicholas Hodder reports a rumor that some pre-Napoleonic pictures show traffic travelling on the left of the Champs-Elysées, but I have yet to confirm this.

Did Napoleon make Europe change sides of the road?

Yes. France probably always drove on the right, and Napoleon required the countries he conquered to conform to French practice. Many other conquerors have done the same.

Did the United States ever drive on the left?

Yes. In the early years of English colonization of North America, English driving customs were followed and the colonies drove on the left. The colonies gradually changed to right-hand driving after independence from England. Kincaid quotes an English author writing in 1806 as saying, "in some parts of the United States, it is a custom among the people to drive on the right side of the road," implying that in other parts, people still drove on the left. We know for certain that the colonies farther north along the coast drove on the left well into the 20th century (see the question about Canada below). I have read that the first law requiring drivers to keep right was passed in Pennsylvania in 1792, and that similar laws were passed in New York in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813. However, I don't yet have primary sources for this information, so it is possible that these states weren't actually changing sides, but only codifying existing practices in law. Other anecdotes from various sources also support the conclusion that the United States drove on the left until some time in the early 1800s, although I have not yet confirmed the dates of the changes from left to right which apparently were made state by state.

However, Kincaid is not convinced that left-hand driving was ever truly widespread in the American colonies. He points out that the colonists were not exclusively English (for example, the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, which later became New York, would have been accustomed to driving on the right), and says that the first vehicles used by the colonists were carts and postilion-control wagons such as the Conestoga, which are best driven on the right. Wagons like the stagecoach (best driven on the left) were not introduced until much later -- too late to change the established practice.

Did Canada ever drive on the left?

Yes, until the 1920s in some areas, but never in Ontario or Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec have always driven on the right, because the first European settlements in these areas were French. (There were of course plenty of native people living there before the French arrived, but in this as in other things, Europeans made the rules.) In the early European conquest of North America, the French controlled the interior from Quebec all the way to Louisiana, and drove on the right. The English occupied the coast and drove on the left in Atlantic Canada and probably in New England. When the English won control of Quebec from France, the French people living there were permitted to retain many customs, including their language, religion, civil law, and evidently the custom of driving on the right. Settlement continued to spread inland across the continent, remaining on the right-hand side of the road.

British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces, however, were administered separately from Upper and Lower Canada, and even after Confederation remained staunchly English and on the left side of the road. They switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the USA:

• British Columbia: 1 January 1922
• New Brunswick: 1 December 1922
• Nova Scotia: 15 April 1923
• Prince Edward Island: 1 May 1924

Newfoundland drove on the left until 1947, and joined Canada in 1949.

More information about the changeover in Nova Scotia is given below in the section "Changing from one side to the other".

Which side of the road did they drive on in ancient times?

Ancient Rome probably drove on the left. We don't know about other ancient civilizations.

The side of the road one drives on seems to be one of those mundane details of everyday life which people take for granted and never bother to write down. In his book, Kincaid comes up with a blank: "I have been unable to discover any firm evidence as to what the rule of the road was in any part of the ancient civilizations in Greece, Rome, or Assyria. It seems inconceivable that there was not one." The readers of this document and I have, however, collected two pieces of evidence which suggest that the ancient Romans drove on the left.

In late 1998, the remains of a Roman quarry was discovered at Blunsdon Ridge, near Swindon, England. It is one of the largest and best-preserved Roman quarries known. Ruts in the road leading to this quarry are much deeper on one side of the road than on the other. If it can be assumed that the side of the road with deeper ruts was the side used by loaded carts leaving the quarry, while the side with shallow ruts indicates empty carts arriving, then we can conclude that at this particular location, at least, the Romans drove on the left. (Sources: a web page in the SwindonWeb Local News Archives for October 1998 which has since disappeared, and an article by Gwynne Dyer, Is driving on the right right or wrong?, from 1999.)

The other evidence comes from a Roman coin. Robert Pease writes that he has seen a picture of a denarius from between 50 BC and 50 AD showing two horsemen riding past each other, right shoulder to right shoulder (i.e. each keeping to the left side of the road).

The list of countries

The following is a list of countries and the side of the road on which they drive. The original source of the list is unknown to me, but it has been updated over the years thanks to the contributions of many Internet users who have visited these countries and reported what they saw. A few countries or regions are listed with question marks ("R?" or "L?") indicating uncertainty -- if you know what the current situation is, please contact me at (lucas@travel-library.com). I have deliberately avoided giving dates for countries that have changed sides; if you want to know details about individual countries, please see Kincaid's Rule of the Road (information given at the beginning of this document).

R	Drive on the right-hand side of the road (and mostly the driver sits on the left side of the car).
L	Drive on the left-hand side of the road (and mostly the driver sits on the right side of the car).

R Afghanistan
R Albania
R Algeria
R American Samoa
R Andorra
R Angola
L Anguilla
L Antigua and Barbuda
R Argentina
R Armenia
R Aruba
L Australia
R Austria
R Azerbaijan
L Bahamas
R Bahrain
L Bangladesh
L Barbados
R Belarus
R Belgium
R Belize
R Benin
L Bermuda
L Bhutan
R Bolivia
R Bosnia and Herzegovina
L Botswana
R Brazil
R British Indian Ocean Territory (Diego Garcia)
L Brunei
R Bulgaria
R Burkina Faso
R Burundi
R Cambodia
R Cameroon
R Canada
R Cape Verde
L Cayman Islands
R Central African Republic
R Chad
R Chile
R China, People's Republic of (Mainland China)
L Christmas Island (Australia)
L Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Australia)
R Colombia
R Comoros
R Congo
L Cook Islands
R Costa Rica
R Croatia
R Cuba
L Cyprus
R Czech Republic
R Denmark
R Djibouti
L Dominica
R Dominican Republic
L East Timor
R Ecuador
R Egypt
R El Salvador
R Equatorial Guinea
R Eritrea
R Estonia
R Ethiopia
L Falkland Islands
R Faroe Islands (Denmark)
L Fiji
R Finland
R France
R French Guiana
R French Polynesia
R Gabon
R Gambia, The
R Gaza Strip
R Georgia
R Germany
R Ghana
R Gibraltar
R Greece
R Greenland
L Grenada
R Guadeloupe (French West Indies)
R Guam
R Guatemala
L Guernsey (Channel Islands)
R Guinea
R Guinea-Bissau
L Guyana
R Haiti
R Honduras
L Hong Kong
R Hungary
R Iceland
L India
L Indonesia
R Iran
R Iraq
L Ireland
R Israel
L Isle of Man
R Italy
R Ivory Coast
L Jamaica
L Japan
L Jersey (Channel Islands)
R Jordan
R Kazakhstan
L Kenya
L Kiribati
R Korea, Democratic People's Republic of (North Korea)
R Korea, Republic of (South Korea)
R Kuwait
R Kyrgyzstan
R Laos
R Latvia
R Lebanon
L Lesotho
R Liberia
R Libya
R Liechtenstein
R Lithuania
R Luxembourg
L Macau
R Macedonia
R Madagascar
L Malawi
L Malaysia
L Maldives
R Mali
L Malta
R Marshall Islands
R Martinique (French West Indies)
R Mauritania
L Mauritius
R Mayotte (France)
R Mexico
R Micronesia, Federated States of
R Midway Islands (USA)
R Moldova
R Monaco
R Mongolia
L Montserrat
R Morocco
L Mozambique
R Myanmar (Burma)
L Namibia
L Nauru
L Nepal
R Netherlands
R Netherlands Antilles (Curacao, St. Maarten, St. Eustatius, Saba)
R New Caledonia
L New Zealand
R Nicaragua
R Niger
R Nigeria
L Niue
L Norfolk Island (Australia)
R Northern Mariana Islands (Saipan)
R Norway
R Oman
L Pakistan
R Palau
R Panama
L Papua New Guinea
R Paraguay
R Peru
R Philippines
L Pitcairn Islands (Britain)
R Poland
R Portugal
R Puerto Rico
R Qatar
R Reunion
R Romania
R Russia
R Rwanda
R Saint Barthélemy (French West Indies)
L Saint Helena
L Saint Kitts and Nevis
L Saint Lucia
R Saint Martin (French West Indies)
R Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France)
L Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
R Samoa
R San Marino
R Sao Tome e Principe
R Saudi Arabia
R Senegal
L Seychelles
R Sierra Leone
L Singapore
R Slovakia
R Slovenia
L Solomon Islands
R Somalia (a part of Somalia trying to assert independence, Somaliland, drives on the left)
L South Africa
R Spain
L Sri Lanka
R Sudan
L Suriname
R Svalbard (Norway)
L Swaziland
R Sweden
R Switzerland
R Syria
R Taiwan
R Tajikistan
L Tanzania
L Thailand
R Togo
L Tokelau (New Zealand)
L Tonga
L Trinidad and Tobago
R Tunisia
R Turkey
R Turkmenistan
L Turks and Caicos Islands
L Tuvalu
L Uganda
R Ukraine
R United Arab Emirates
L United Kingdom
R United States
R Uruguay
R Uzbekistan
R Vanuatu
R Venezuela
R Vietnam
L Virgin Islands (British)
L Virgin Islands (US)
R Wake Island (USA)
R Wallis and Futuna Islands [Fr.]
R West Bank
R Western Sahara (ex Spanish Sahara)
R Yemen
R Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)
R Zaire
L Zambia
L Zimbabwe

Exceptions

The United Nations Convention on Road Traffic 1949 Article 9(1) states "All vehicular traffic proceeding in the same direction on any road shall keep to the same side of the road, which shall be uniform in each country for all roads. Domestic regulations concerning one-way traffic shall not be affected." However, many countries have a few isolated exceptions where traffic on certain roads drives on the opposite side from the rest of the country. Here are a few that have been reported.

Canada

There is a 10-20 km stretch of road in southwestern Montreal, Quebec, Canada that is left driven, meaning you drive on the left side. At each end of this stretch of road there are crossing bridges to guide cars back to the right side of the road. This road is Autoroute 20 near the Lachine Rapids where it meets the Ottawa River. It's been a long time since I've been on that road, but I think many of the highway exits were located in the middle. Even though you were driving at the left side on this short stretch of road, the basic 'slower traffic keep right' rule still applies.(Edwin Man )

Ireland

Parnell Bridge in Cork. One-way traffic approaching from opposite quays hug the right-hand-side of the road over the bridge. (Red Shannon)

Italy

Two bridges in Rome: Ponte Palatino and Ponte Pietro Nenni.

Via Cernaia in Rome.

Spain

In Barcelona, there is a part of Carrer de Ramon Trias as it passes through Parc de les Cascades where one drives on the left, instead of on the right. (Nicholas Hodder)

United Kingdom

Savoy Court is a small private road which gives access to the main entrance of the Savoy Theatre in London. The drive-right rule on this small road was instituted sometime after 1929, so that vehicles queuing to drop people at the theatre would not block access to the Savoy Hotel. It is especially notable because of its intersection with the Strand, a major street in central London.

Previous editions of this document had reported that traffic on US military bases in the UK drives on the right, which is incorrect. Traffic on US military bases in the UK keeps left, the same as traffic in the rest of the UK. (George Birch)

United States of America

There is a rather dramatic segment of Interstate 5 where one drives on the left. It is on the Five Mile Grade coming into the Los Angeles area from the north. Because there are four lanes going in each direction, the separation is several miles long, and the two roadways are on opposite sides of a canyon, the effect is quite impressive. These two web sites discuss it, and the first has a map showing the crossovers: http://www.scvresources.com/highways/us_99/us99022.htm, http://www.gbcnet.com/ushighways/US99/US99f_contents.html.(Bill Choisser )

Border crossings

How do drivers change sides when they cross a border?

There are no longer very many countries which share land borders and drive on opposite sides of the road. However, it's not as great a puzzle as it seems, because you normally have to stop anyway for customs and immigration clearance. Generally speaking, you drive into the customs area, park your vehicle for inspection, and then when you leave via the other side of the parking area, you simply make sure you are on the correct side of the road.

Here are a few reports from the field...

• Andrew Myles: It was not a problem at the only border I have been to like this (Zaire-Uganda). The traffic was slow and there was very little of it. There was just a sign reminding you to swap sides.
• Lynn Garry Salmon: The border crossing from China (where they drive on the right) to Pakistan (where they drive on the left) merely has a sign at the side of the road that says "Entering Pakistan, Drive Left" and for those going the other way "Entering China, Drive Right".
• agsmith : Usually you don't drive straight through a border post. The only place I've crossed a land border where the side of the road for driving changes is between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We drove into a car park (using the right hand side) and after the border formalities, drove out using the left hand side.
• Douglas Clark: Both Hong Kong and Macao drive on the left and China on the right. In each case, now, when you cross the border, you do so through a car park/customs area and merely exit onto the correct side of the road.
• There is one bridge across the Mekong River between Thailand (driving on the left) and Laos (driving on the right), which opened in 1994. Vehicles keep left on the bridge, and cross over at a traffic signal at the Laos end of the bridge. (See Eric and Joan's travelogue, Mekong Express Laos Magazine)
• At the border between Namibia (left-side driving) and Angola (right-side driving), there are customs on the Namibian side but none on the Angolan side (at least at the border). One drives through customs on the left side of the building (the road is split, with the customs building in the median). Then, at the gate (at the exact border), there are two one-way driveways (one on the left/west going north into Angola, one on the right/east going south back into Namibia). On the north side of the gate, these driveways intersect with a two-way street where people drive on the right. There were few cars at this border (but many many pedestrians). (Brandt Maxwell)

What side of the road does one use in the English Channel tunnel (Eurotunnel)?

You don't drive in the Eurotunnel. When you arrive at the terminal at either end, you park your car on a train wagon, and the train takes you across. When you get off the train at the other end, choose the correct side of the road.

There are two rail tunnels, one in each direction, and trains use the left-hand tunnel. Maintenance and emergency vehicles conform to local standard practice when they are in the terminal areas, keeping left while in the UK terminal area and right in the French terminal. Maintenance and emergency vehicles can also drive in a service tunnel that runs between the two rail tunnels. They pass through an airlock to enter the service tunnel, and while in the service tunnel they keep to the left, says Eurotunnel, the tunnel operators.

For more about the Eurotunnel, see this photo of the French entrance to the tunnel (361 kb) provided by Nicholas Hodder, which shows the train tunnel entrances and the service tunnel entrance, or visit the Eurotunnel company web site.

Changing from one side to the other

During the age of colonization and empires, colonial powers normally imposed their driving customs on their colonies worldwide. Many countries which drive on the left today do so because of the British Empire, with the notable exceptions of the USA and Canada, as discussed previously. Napoleon's conquests in Europe forced most of the continent to drive on the right in conformance with French practice if they did not already do so. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the Channel Islands changed sides from left to right to conform to German practice during World War II. And more recently, Trevor Jordan reports that the Falkland Islands drove on the right during the period of Argentine occupation in the early 1980s.

Many countries have switched sides for other reasons as well. Kincaid's The Rule of the Road gives some details of the changeover process for many countries. I have received some substantial information about the changeovers in Sweden and in Nova Scotia, Canada, which I will mention here. For all other countries, please refer to Kincaid's book.

Sweden, 1967

Pamphlet from 1967 about Sweden's change to right-hand driving. Image provided by Anders Hanquist.

According to Kincaid, Sweden drove on the right prior to about 1736, when it switched to the left (no reason is known for this change). However, its neighbors Norway and Denmark have always kept to the right, and Finland has also kept right ever since its independence and probably during the period of Russian administration before that.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the Swedish government felt increasing pressure to change sides to conform with the rest of Europe. Anders Hanquist writes, "The problem with left-hand driving in Sweden was, of course, that all our neighbours already drove on the right side. There are a lot of small roads, without border guards, leading into Norway so you had to remember in which country you were. Another curiosity was that most of the cars running in Sweden were built for right-hand driving. That means that the steering wheel was on the left side. Even cars imported from Britain were built that way. Buses, however, had the driver on the right side."

A referendum on the question of introducing right-hand driving was held in 1955, with the vote being 82.9% against and only 15.5% in favour of the conversion (see referendum results). However, in 1963 the Swedish parliament passed a law on the conversion to right-hand driving. The change took place in the early Sunday morning at 5:00 on the 3rd of September 1967.

"The traffic conversion in Sweden was," says Hanquist, "very well prepared. A booklet with more than 30 pages was distributed to every household in the country. A special state authority, Statens Högertrafikkommision (national right-hand traffic commission) was set up to administer the conversion. All traffic with private motor driven vehicles was prohibited four hours before and one hour after the conversion. In some cities there was no private traffic for 24 to 29 hours. Soldiers were called out to participate in work to rearrange all traffic signs." Malcolm Roe recalls that "the roads were completely closed, apart from emergency vehicles, for a day or two while changes were made to road signs etc. Then a very low speed limit was applied which was raised in a number of steps. The whole process, if I remember correctly, took about a month."

A 1960 Scania Vaibis bus, made in Sweden with the steering wheel on the right, for driving on the left side of the road. This particular bus is owned by a Norwegian regional transit company, Setesdal Bilruter. The man in the photo is David Halsall, assistant director of the company in 1999. The photo and this information were copied from the December 1999 issue of the online newsletter of Buses International Association.

John R. Nickolls recalls watching the event from England on BBC television. He reports that Cliff Michelmore of the BBC "Tonight" show presented a live programme from Stockholm on the night of the changeover. "At (I'm fairly certain) 10 o'clock at night he pulled to the right-hand side of the road, waited about 5 minutes for road signs to be changed (explaining what was going on the while) and then asked a nearby policeman if he could now go on. The policeman waved him on, and that was it."

Jim West writes, "My first driving experience outside the UK was in Sweden where I arrived one Sunday afternoon on a ferry docking in Gothenberg. It was 3 Sept 1967 and I and my fellow traveller were unaware of the significance of the date. We became aware that traffic was not normal as we left the ferry terminal because all traffic was moving at 10 Km/hr or less. Many drivers were obviously confused, stopping to get their bearings, moving uncertainly between traffic lanes and attempting to make turns at familiar but now different junctions."

We're not completely sure when Swedes adopted the practice of driving with the steering wheel on the left-hand side of the car. One reader says that people began buying cars with the steering wheel on the left several years before the change, in anticipation of it; and another says that Swedish cars have always had the steering wheel on the left, even when they drove on the left.

All railways and the Stockholm Underground (subway, metro) still use left-hand driving. Trams (streetcars) of course drive on the right, except for one section which uses left-hand running because of the convenience of interchange arrangements at Alvik station. There is a crossover at a traffic light protected junction where the trams change from left to right and vice versa. (Norman Bartlett)

Nova Scotia, Canada, 1923

"Keep to the right" in Nova Scotia, 1923. Photograph provided by Jim Sangster. Click the photo for a larger image.

Nova Scotia switched to driving on the right-hand side of the road on 15 April 1923. Nova Scotia Tramways & Power Company Limited, which owned and operated the electric streetcar system in Halifax, sued the provincial government to recover the cost of changing the doors on all streetcars to the other side, and the cost of changes in track layout. In Lunenburg County, 1923 is still known as The Year of Free Beef; the price of beef dropped precipitously because oxen which had been trained to keep to the left could not be retrained – oxen are notoriously slow-witted – and many teamsters had to replace their oxen with new ones trained to keep to the right; the displaced oxen were sent to slaughter.

The photograph at left was taken in the summer or fall of 1923, at Walnut Street, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The boy is Jim Sangster, then seven years old. The automobile (make and model not known) belonged to Max Manning (brother of Fred Manning, who built up the chain of Super Service gasoline stations in Nova Scotia). The sign displayed on the windshield is painted on sheet metal and reads "Keep to the Right", and faces forward as a reminder to oncoming drivers to drive on the right-hand side. The change from left to right had legally occurred on 15 April 1923, but it took time for drivers to get used to it. During the summer of 1923 there were several accidents due to drivers forgetting the new rule and lapsing into old habits. These windshield signs were manufactured in quantity, and sold as a defensive measure to drivers who wanted to reduce the chance of getting hit head-on by an oncoming vehicle on the wrong side of the road.

Other anecdotes...

Myanmar (Burma) was a British colony until 1948, and drove on the left until 1970, when it changed sides. It is said that the ruler of the country, Ne Win, consulted a soothsayer or interpreted a dream to mean that all traffic should keep to the right. However, there are still many old cars and buses and almost all the modern cars are second hand imports from Japan so virtually every vehicle is right hand drive. You can still see old traffic lights in downtown Rangoon on the wrong side of the road. (David Morgan, David Barnett)

In Nigeria, a former British colony, driving had traditionally been on the left with British imported RHD cars. In the seventies, as the new nation desperately veered away from its colonial past (if there's one thing Nigerians hate more than their corrupt Generals, it's the Brits -- and they blame the one on the other all too often!!), Nigeria shifted to driving on the right. In the words of Simon, a Nigerian who's old enough to -- well, just about -- remember: "America was where the goodies were pouring in from! We refused to drive overpriced British cars any more. Everyone wanted to drive a Cadillac or a Mercedes". Remember this was in the first flush of Nigeria' oil wealth, alas not to last very long. Still, even now, the number of reconditioned Mercedes Benzes running in Lagos has to be seen to be believed. Ironically, it is now the Japanese imports -- LHD versions of course-- that are outselling the BMWs and Fords! (Anoop Bhat )

The cars are different too

Almost always, in countries where one drives on the right-hand side of the road, the cars are built so that the driver sits on the left-hand side of the car. Conversely, driving on the left-hand side of the road usually implies that the driver's seat is on the right-hand side of the car. The driver generally sits on the side of the car that is nearest to the centreline of the road. However, this is not universally true.

Joe Flake notes that in 1983, he visited St Thomas (US Virgin Islands) and found that one drives on the left side of the road, but the cars are all US-standard, with the driver sitting on the left-hand side of the car. "Confusing enough to be on the 'wrong' side, but passing on the narrow roads was a real treat. You really depend on the passenger! Ease out across the center line and get either approval or a loud 'NO!' from the passenger."

In Cyprus, both North and South, they drive on the left. Malcolm Roe reports that in the North, most vehicles are right-hand-drive models which arrive via Turkey (thus you have left-hand-drive vehicles driven on the left-hand side of the road). Another correspondent reports that in the South, vehicles tend to be right-hand-drive models, which are imported from England, Japan, and other countries.

There are also exceptions for certain kinds of specialized service vehicles. For example, some vehicles used for postal delivery in the USA are right-hand-drive so that the driver can reach curbside mailboxes without having to get out of the vehicle. Street-sweeping vehicles may have the reverse driving position to place the driver next to the gutter. Norman Bartlett reports that Italian-built trolleybuses were RHD for many years, supposedly to observe the passenger doors better, and some Fiat models were still in service in Milano until the mid-1990s.

Until the mid-60's, all Lancias, even in LHD Italy, were manufactured as RHD. Lancia intended the cars to be suitable for use on the Alpine passes, so when driving on the right, the driver was also on the right, and could see the edge of the road. Apparently falling off the edge of the road is a greater danger than head-on collisions. (Clint Rodgers) Modern Italian trucks in the Alps are still often right-hand-drive for the same reason. Similarly, Spanish buses and trucks were RHD for many years because of need to watch for unstable road edges, and the main Spanish manufacturer, Pegaso, was producing RHD vehicles well into the 1950s. (Buses Worldwide, issue 98, Jan. 1999, as reported by Norman Bartlett)

In Gibraltar, some buses are RHD, with passengers entering a doorway behind the driver. This is in spite of the fact that local cars are LHD, except for UK and Japanese used imports and British forces Land Rovers. Gibraltar changed to right hand traffic in 1929, but everything else looks British (number plates, road signs and traffic lights). (Ken Westmoreland)

Some countries restrict imports of vehicles that have their controls arranged differently from the norm for the country, but foreign tourists are usually allowed to drive their odd vehicles while they visit. Non-standard vehicles may be required to have a sign on the back announcing this, which typically reads, "Right-hand drive" or "Left-hand drive" or just "RHD" or "LHD". According to a story appearing on the BBC News web site, Cambodia (which drives on the right) banned all right-hand-drive vehicles in January 2001 in order to control imports of stolen and smuggled vehicles from Thailand, and required all car owners to have their vehicles modified so that the steering wheel is on the left or risk confiscation. About 80% of the officially registered vehicles in the country will have to be modified in order to comply. (Thanks to Nicholas Hodder and David Morgan for these tips.)

One comfort in all this is that the arrangement of the pedals and the gear shift is the same world-wide. Howard Wilson provides this explanation:

An international standard was arrived at some time ago which set the pedal arrangement no matter which side the steering wheel - going from right to left, 'A-B-C', or accelerator, brake, clutch (if the vehicle has manual transmission). This standard has meant that for the driver who lives in a RHD country and, say, rents a car in a LHD country, he does not have to re-educate himself before he can use the most fundamental components of driving, the pedals!

The manual (as opposed to automatic) gear shift pattern is also the same but for different, commercial reasons. The same transmissions are generally used whether LHD or RHD, and to alter this to cater for the different driving side has not been adopted because the cost/benefit ratio would not be favourable. [Another reader noted that even though the shifting pattern is the same, shifting with the hand that is not accustomed to doing so can be almost inacpacitating at first.]

One area which is not standardized is the location of the turn signal lever. In most places, the turn signal is mounted on the left side of the steering column. This includes right-hand drive vehicles in the UK, and left-hand drive vehicles in continental Europe and North America. Vehicles built in Australia and Japan, however, have the turn signal lever mounted on the right. At one time this meant that cars made by Nissan in Britain had the signals/wiper controls one way round, but cars made by Nissan in Japan for the British market had them the opposite way round. In recent years most Japanese cars sold in the British Isles seem to conform to the European convention. (Howard Wilson, Martin Rich)

Cars driven on the left side of the road usually have headlights which are aimed slightly to the left when not on full beam, and vice-versa with cars intended to be driven on the right. In Europe, it is common for travellers from the UK to affix deflectors to their headlights to prevent them dazzling oncoming drivers when driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Also, windscreen wipers are usually aligned to give more coverage to the driver's side than to the passenger side. (Nicholas Hodder)

Japanese people sometimes import left-hand drive models of cars, whereas the standard Japanese car in Japan is right-hand-drive. This is done purely for prestige. A Mercedes or BMW with the steering wheel on the left is seen as more authentic and carries something of a cachet. It is also more expensive than the right-hand-drive version of the same vehicle. (Martin Rich, Louise Bremner, Clint Rodgers)

All early automobiles in the USA (driving on the right-hand side of the road) were right-hand drive, following the practice established by horse-drawn buggies. They changed to left-hand-drive in the early 1900s as it was decided that it was more practical to have the driver seated near the centreline of the road, both to judge the space available when passing oncoming cars, and to allow front-seat passengers to get out of the car onto the sidewalk instead of into the middle of the street. (David Clement notes two counterpoints to this, however. First, on narrow roads where there may be roadside obstacles like fences or under snowy conditions, it might be more important to have a good view of the edge of the road. Second, a chauffer-driven car driven on the right-hand side of the road should have the driver seated on the right in order to more easily open the door for the back-seat passenger stepping onto the sidewalk. Perhaps American practice was more influenced by the middle class.)

Ford changed to left-hand drive in the 1908 model year. Chris Garrett reports that he has a book that shows a 1907 Ford with the caption, "last of the right drive Fords," and I have a photocopy of a Ford catalogue from 1908 (thanks to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan) which explains the benefits of placing the controls on the left side of the car thus:

The control is located on the left side, the logical place, for the following reasons: Travelling along the right side of the road the steering wheel on the right side of the car made it necessary to get out on the street side and walk around the car. This is awkward and especially inconvenient if there is a lady to be considered. The control on the left allows you to step out of the car on to the curbing without having had to turn the car around.

In the matter of steering with the control on the right the driver is farthest away from the vehicle he is passing, going in opposite direction; with it on the left side he is able to see even the wheels of the other car and easily avoids danger.

With the wheel at the left, the hand levers are operated with the left hand leaving the right hand to do the more delicate work of steering the car.

Michael Scotts writes that he has a Cadillac book which states that all their US cars were right-hand drive until 1915, when there was the option of taking left-hand drive. Soon after 1916, they were left-hand drive only.

It is the signaling equipment that determines whether a double track railway goes on the left or on the right.  Many modern main-line railways are equipped to allow traffic at full speed in either direction on either track, and in some cases it is normal to use both tracks for trains in the same direction simultaneously.  On tracks with older signaling equipment, as well as on lines with heavy traffic such as metros and suburban traffic, each track is almost always used in one direction only.  Most railway authorities then have a general rule. (Jens Brix Christiansen)

Here are the rules for a few countries:

Left:		Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK.
Right:		Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Sweden, USA.

It is of course important that road traffic be consistently on the same side of the road. Since railways are highly controlled and don't always interconnect, there are many exceptions to the general rule of train operation.

Most trains in the United Kingdom operate on the left, but there are a number of short sections on the London Underground where for one reason or another they operate on the right -- for example, the Northern Line at Bank Station. On the line from Glasgow to Fort William in Scotland, trains keep to the right at stations because the station platform is an island between two tracks, and the train operator, who sits on the left, can more easily view the platform. (Martin Rich) Why does the driver sit on the left? Two reasons: (1) to get a better view of trackside signals, and (2) to be able to stick his head out the window without it getting knocked off by a train on the other track. (Thomas Murphy)

In France (where cars keep to the right), trains run on the left as a legacy from the days when they were first constructed by English engineers with equipment imported from England. "When the Paris Métro was being built (the first line opened in 1900) there was some debate about the rule of the road. The city authorities were quite keen to maintain their autonomy from central government which had been suggesting the metro should be built to allow troop movements within the city in the event of civil commotion. The first lines were only a short way below the surface and along the lines of streets so it was logical to have right hand running." (Notre Métro by Dr. J. Robert, reported by Norman Bartlett) One line of the RER commuter system also runs on the right, because it is run by the city transit system, RATP, rather than the national railway, SNCF. French railways in Alsace-Lorraine run on the right, as it wasn't worthwhile converting them when the territory was returned to France. (Mark Brader)

In Korea, trains drive on the left, presumably because the railroad system was built by the Japanese (who drive on the left) when Korea was a Japanese colony. The Seoul subway, on the other hand, was constructed beginning in the 1980s with French aid; by that time, Korean and French drivers were both driving on the right, so the subway does too, except for one line which connects directly to the National Railway, and which therefore must be on the left. "It can be confusing when deciding which side of a concourse to board a train," says Douglas Clark.

In Russia, most trains run on the right, except for the line between Moscow and Ryazan, which was designed and built by British engineers. (Sergey Fedosov)

In Taiwan, trains drive on the left because the railroads were mostly built during the period of Japanese rule -- and the Japanese drive on the left. Taiwan has since changed to driving on the right but the old trains remain on the left. The new Taipei Rapid Transit System, built in the 1990s with French aid, keeps to the right. (Justin Jih)

In the USA and Canada, trains keep to the right, with one major exception: the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. The line's construction was financed by British capital, which may have influenced the track plans. It may also be that the stations were arbitrarily placed all on one side of the tracks when the line was single-track, and when the second track was added it was impractical to change all the station alignments so the outbound track ended up on the left. (Don Howard, Eric Zimmerman) Another exception can be found in the approaches to New York City's Grand Central Station, which were run left-handed around 1900 because the new arrivals section of the terminal was built on the only available land, on the wrong side of the tracks. The crossing point was several miles north of the station, away from the worst congestion. (James F. Boylan)

The Rochester, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio trolley car (tram) subways ran left handed so that center platforms between the tracks could be shared in both directions by single direction cars with only curbside doors. In Rochester, many of the ramps to get cars down from the street to the subway were single-track, so you entered and exited the ramps from opposite sides of double track. There have been other smaller and isolated instances, sometimes for better visibility at a certain point. (James F. Boylan)

While American railroad engineers usually sit on the right side, there are exceptions. One is the above-mentioned Chicago & North Western Railway; in addition, sometimes self-propelled passenger cars (including most trolley cars) are designed to board passengers at the front from right-hand platforms, so the operator sits either center or left. (James F. Boylan)

Rui Gustavo Crespo notes that where neighboring countries run their trains on opposite sides of the track, trains must switch sides at the border. "In The Netherlands trains run on the right, but in Belgium they move on the left. Last Sunday I travelled between the two countries. At Roosendal (a Dutch city close to the border), the train stopped at the railway station and had to wait for permission to move to the left track: from then, although we were still in Netherlands, our train was conducted on the left."

A tunnel and bridge (the Øresund link) connects Copenhagen, Denmark, where trains run on the right, and Malmö, Sweden, where they run on the left. The railway's signaling equipment allows full-speed traffic in either direction on both tracks, but it was decided that trains on the link would keep right, and Malmö Central Station is the cross-over point so that all traffic in Sweden south of Malmö Central now goes on the right. (Jens Brix Christiansen)

What about boats?

The worldwide convention for all water traffic is to keep to the right, and to yield to traffic approaching from the right. But there are exceptions. Mark King writes, "Although boating on the high seas is keep right, there is no such rule on French canals, where each bridge has a sign indicating which side this time." Mike Elwell and Pete Murdie report that on the River Rhine traffic keeps to the usual sea navigation practice of keeping right, but some negotiation is permitted. A vessel travelling upstream can request downstream traffic to change to the left side of the river when the river bends to the left (going upstream) and the current is much stronger on the right side of the river. The request is made by displaying a blue signal board, one metre square, on the starboard side of the vessel's bridge. The board has a flashing white light in the middle (frequency about one flash per second). Downstream vessels, if they agree, will accept by displaying their panel; otherwise the normal rules apply.

Martin Rich and Anton Sherwood report that A. P. Herbert wrote a humorous short story ("Rumpelheimer v Haddock: Port to Port") about a British man in court for a motoring offence. Part of his defence was that the road was flooded, so he followed the rule of the waterways (keep right) and not the rule of the road (keep left). The story can be found in Uncommon Law, 1935 (reprinted 1991).

The placement of the operator's seat in a boat is the opposite of the practice for cars. A car built for driving on the right-hand side of a road has the driver's seat on the left; boats keep to right in their channels, but have their "driver's seat" also on the right. Jim Dubel explains that the reason for this is the right-of-way rule: boats are required to yield to traffic approaching from the right, so by sitting on the right, operators can better see traffic to which they must yield. Jeremy Langdon adds that on large modern ships, the pilot or officer of the watch is stationed on the starboard (right) side of the bridge, which is designed off-centre. "The helmsman (who operates the manual steering wheel and takes orders from the pilot or officer in charge), however, will still be positioned on the centre line as he needs to see the way in which the ship is behaving and can only do this when he has a clean view down the centre of the ship."

What about pedestrians?

The rules about which side of the road people drive on are clear, but there are also "rules" that govern how pedestrians behave in relation to each other. These pedestrian rules are not usually codified in law (the recent proposal to legislate a "fast lane" for walkers on Oxford Street in London notwithstanding) but form a sort of "standard practice" which many people are not even consciously aware of until they travel to a country with a different standard practice and end up bumping into the locals.

In this section, when we describe pedestrians keeping right or left, we mean right or left in relation to other pedestrians on sidewalks, in hallways, and in pedestrian-only areas. We're not talking about pedestrians in relation to cars. That situation is universally covered by law or at least by parents' instructions to their children, as follows: for greatest safety, pedestrians walking on or next to a street that has no separated footpath are advised to walk so that they are facing oncoming motor vehicles, no matter which side the cars are on. This means that if cars keep right, then pedestrians should walk on the left side of the road facing oncoming traffic, and vice-versa.

Keep right: Keeping right is the normal practice in the USA and Canada. (There might be some regional variations: one reader says that people in Idaho keep to the left.) Mark King reports that people even keep right when skating on Ottawa's 8-kilometer-long Rideau Canal skating rink. France also keeps to the right. Pedestrians in Taiwan keep right and to reinforce the rule, some crosswalks in Taipei were painted with arrows directing people to keep right when crossing roads. As the habit has become more ingrained, these arrows have been gradually removed. (Justin Jih)

No preference: The United Kingdom seems not to have a preference as to which side of the path to use when walking. Mark King comments that this puts the British at a disadvantage when they go to places where there is a standard practice, because "they are unaware that there is a convention and so do not instinctively follow it, so getting in the way of roughly half of the people coming the other way and muttering about how crowded it is." Jay Doty confirms that the Scots also walk "every which way."

This doesn't mean that the British bump into each other. They don't tend to use single-file traffic, but they still manage to negotiate their way effectively using body language, eye contact, and other cues to signal their intentions and notice others' intentions. Foreigners in the UK who are not tuned in to the signals try to play follow-the-leader and end up bumping into people when the leader's route turns out to be unpredictable. Conversely, British tourists in foreign lands who don't realize that they are supposed to fall in line, cut through traffic at odd places and get run down. Aaron Moreau-Cook, an American, says that he used to constantly run into people when visiting the UK, but then he moved there and adapted: "after four months of living here I now can navigate the pedestrian walkways without a problem." William Hibbert suggests that "if you're in a hurry, the best way to proceed is to ignore other peoples' signals, and give out a very strong signal of your own by staring hard in the direction you want to go, aiming for each successive gap in the oncoming crowd. They'll understand and move aside in response to the strong psychological pressure you're exerting."

Sreekumar Ashok writes that in India, just like in the UK, there is no fixed side for pedestrians and they use all the same techniques to avoid a jam.

Keep left: People in Japan keep left when walking. Tourists in Japan should remember this, says Jay Doty: "When you walked on the right you were definitely a hinderance to traffic." Conversely, Japanese tourists cause traffic jams in other countries: Wayne Huffman reports from Hawai'i that he has "had countless Japanese people walk directly into me, even though I am 6'4" and 220 pounds. If someone is coming at you and you step to your right, they step to their left, and you stay on a collision course. This happens to me at least five times a day." There is a weak tendency to keep left in Australia and New Zealand, although many people report that the tendency is weak indeed. David Hoole says, "Australians... are even more unruly than the English," and he's not referring to Aussie-rules football. Bill Lockhart mentioned that he has observed Mexicans fighting the flow by trying to keep left in Texas when everyone else was keeping right, and wonders if keeping left might be the standard practice in central or southern Mexico. David Newgreen recalls sailing from England to Australia in 1966-67, when the safety briefing instructed passengers that in case of emergency, they were to keep to the right-hand side of staircases and passageways. The briefing stated, "we emphasise this for the benefit of Australian and New Zealand passengers who normally keep to the left." Edwin Man reports that in Hong Kong there is a slight tendency to walk on the left.

Spiral stairs

Brendan Whyte noted that although Australians normally keep left, the spiral stairs in the Ballieu Library at the University of Melbourne have a sign saying "keep right." This is apparently for safety reasons, as further explained by Kendall Lister. The steps curve to the right, or clockwise, as you climb them, and they are very narrow on the inside of the curve. Narrow stairs are easier to climb than to descend, because people usually put only the front part of their foot on a stair and don't use their heels. Therefore, it is easier and safer to climb on the inside of the curve, and descend on the outside where the stairs are wider, meaning that one should keep to the right.

This discussion brought up the question, why do the stairs curve in the direction that they do? Traditionally, they curve right or clockwise as you climb them, because it was easiest for a knight with a sword to defend a tower if they curved in that direction. Spend a few minutes chasing freshmen up and down the Ballieu Library staircase while waving your right arm about, and you should soon be convinced that it is easier and more effective to brandish a sword if your sword arm is towards the outside of the curve. (Use of real swords is not recommended if you want to retain your book-borrowing privileges.) So the owner of a spiral stair will prefer to defend while facing counter-clockwise, and to have unwanted guests approach in a clockwise direction. We assume that most often, the unwanted guests will be trying to climb rather than descend. All of this assumes a right-handed swordsman, of course, and a staircase which is wrapped around a central support of some kind. A staircase which follows the inside wall of a structure and has open space in the center would operate in reverse, as would a staircase which is meant to be defended from below instead of from above. I have heard a rumor that there is at least one Scottish castle built by a family with a strong tendency towards left-handedness, which has staircases curving the other way around.

Escalators and moving walkways

On escalators and moving walkways in places like airports and subways (metros) in Europe and North America, people usually keep to the right and allow others to overtake on the left: "walk left, stand right." Nicholas Hodder confirms that despite the fact that Londoners walk every which way on the surface, they observe the "stand on the right" rule on escalators in the Underground. He also mentions that there are "signs asking passengers to stand on the right on escalators, [and] there are also signs asking passengers to keep to the left when walking around connecting tunnels in some of the busier stations."

In Japan, says Louise Bremner, people didn't walk on escalators or travelators at all until recently. "But impatient Tokyoites recently started the habit overtaking on the right, while the less impatient stood on the left. At about the same time, the City of Osaka started putting up signs saying 'stand on the right, walk on the left', on the grounds that this is how it's done abroad. So now there are two distinctly different habits set up within the same country."

In Australia, writes Daniel Bowen, the convention on escalators is stand left, walk right. "Until a few years ago, underground stations in Melbourne had signs saying this. For some reason they took the signs away, but everyone still follows the convention."

Revolving doors

Another interesting choice that pedestrians must make is which way to go through a revolving door. In North America and continental Europe, people keep to the right when they pass through revolving doors, and the door rotates counter-clockwise as viewed from above. Alex Boster reports that in Australia and New Zealand, the situation is reversed and people keep to the left. As a tourist, "the second biggest danger to life and limb... was not to get smacked in the face by a revolving door." Joe DeRose writes that in Atlanta (USA), there is a restaurant (the Tavern at Phipps) which has a "large antique revolving door at one of the entrances. A prominent sign on the door reminds people to enter to the left, and explains that the door was originally installed in London in 1908."

What about aircraft?

Aircraft keep to the right. In fixed-wing aircraft, the pilot (captain) sits on the left. In helicopters, the pilot sits on the right.

The explanation for this which appears below is excerpted from comments by Michael Fortescue in the New Scientist web site. For the full explanation, see: http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/answers/661transport.jsp.

By the end of the First World War, the rotary engine was the most common design for powerful fighter aircraft. In this layout, the cylinders were arranged radially around the propeller's axle, and the axle was fixed to the aircraft so that the entire engine spun around it. The momentum of the spinning engine kept it turning even when it misfired, giving a fair chance of recovering if a misfire occurred. When it came to steering rotary-engined aircraft, turns in one direction were with the torque of the engine, while turns in the opposite direction were against it, and required much more rudder movement to compensate. It so happened that the most successful manufacturer's engine spun in the direction that made left turns easier. As a result, pilots chose, whenever possible, to turn left, and the traffic patterns around airfields as pilots manoeuvred to land usually involved only left turns. When side-by-side seating became available (pilot and passenger, or pilot and co-pilot in larger aircraft), including in later First World War bombers, the left-hand seat was usually configured for the pilot (with more complete instruments and controls), because that seat afforded better visibility for the relatively frequent left turns.

The fact that the pilot sits on the left made it logical for aircraft to keep to the right along air routes, for better visibility, as described by Patrick Manley on the same web page:

Early aviators would often navigate by following roads and railways. Indeed, on some routes across the deserts of the Middle East, furrows were ploughed in the sand so that pilots could follow them. Aircraft flying in opposite directions along the same line would need to pass each other "port to port" (that is one aircraft's left-hand side to the other's left-hand side), so pilots tended to fly with the line they were following on the port side. In other words aircraft drove on the right.

Norman Bartlett reports that during the development of the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, which flies like a fixed-wing aircraft but can tilt its rotors to take off and land like a helicopter, there was a dilemma in choosing where the captain's seat would be. Would the new aircraft follow the fixed-wing standard and seat the captain on the left, or follow the helicopter standard and seat the captain on the right? The US Marines decided that the landing and take-off phases carried more weight, and placed the captain on the right.

Population distribution

Having often encountered the implicit assumption that everyone but England and some of her colonies drive on the right side of the road, I compiled from the above list, a quick table of populations to provide a clue as to just how evenly the sides are represented. As it turns out, some 4 billion people drive right, and 2 billion drive left (when they drive at all that is). So a goodly third of the world drives on the left.

Left Side Drivers Right Side Drivers

India 952,107,694 China, Mainland 1,210,004,956 Indonesia 206,611,600 United States 265,562,845 Pakistan 129,275,660 Brazil 162,661,214 Japan 125,449,703 Russia 148,178,487 Bangladesh 123,062,800 Nigeria 103,912,489 Thailand 58,851,357 Mexico 95,772,462 United Kingdom 58,489,975 Germany 83,536,115 South Africa 41,743,459 Philippines 74,480,848 Tanzania 29,058,470 Vietnam 73,976,973 Kenya 28,176,686 Iran 66,094,264 Nepal 22,094,033 Egypt 63,575,107 Uganda 20,158,176 Turkey 62,484,478 Malaysia 19,962,893 France 58,040,988 Sri Lanka 18,553,074 Italy 57,460,274 Australia 18,260,863 Ethiopia 57,171,662 Mozambique 17,877,927 Ukraine 50,864,009 Zimbabwe 11,271,314 Zaire 46,498,539 Malawi 9,452,844 Burma 45,975,625 Zambia 9,159,072 South Korea 45,482,291 Hong Kong 6,305,413 Spain 39,181,114 Papua New Guinea 4,394,537 Poland 38,642,565 Ireland 3,566,833 Colombia 36,813,161 New Zealand 3,547,983 Argentina 34,672,997 Singapore 3,396,924 Sudan 31,065,229 Jamaica 2,595,275 Morocco 29,779,156 Lesotho 1,970,781 Algeria 29,183,032 Bhutan 1,822,625 Canada 28,820,671 Namibia 1,677,243 Peru 24,523,408 Botswana 1,477,630 North Korea 23,904,124 Trinidad and Tobago 1,272,385 Uzbekistan 23,418,381 Mauritius 1,140,256 Afghanistan 22,664,136 Swaziland 998,730 Venezuela 21,983,188 Fiji 782,381 Romania 21,657,162 Cyprus 744,609 China, Taiwan 21,465,881 Guyana 712,091 Iraq 21,422,292 Macau 496,837 Saudi Arabia 19,409,058 Suriname 436,418 Ghana 17,698,271 Solomon Islands 412,902 Kazakstan 16,916,463 Malta 375,576 Syria 15,608,648 Brunei 299,939 Netherlands 15,568,034 Maldives 270,758 Ivory Coast 14,762,445 Bahamas, The 259,367 Chile 14,333,258 Barbados 257,030 Cameroon 14,261,557 Saint Lucia 157,862 Madagascar 13,670,507 Saint Vincent 118,344 Yemen 13,483,178 US Virgin Islands 97,120 Ecuador 11,466,291 Grenada 94,961 Guatemala 11,277,614 Dominica 82,926 Cuba 10,951,334 Kiribati 80,919 Cambodia 10,861,218 Seychelles 77,575 Burkina Faso 10,623,323 Antigua and Barbuda 65,647 Greece 10,538,594 Guernsey 62,920 Belarus 10,415,973 Bermuda 62,099 Angola 10,342,899 Saint Kitts and Nevis 41,369 Czech Republic 10,321,120 Cook Islands 19,561 Belgium 10,170,241 Turks and Caicos Islands 14,302 Hungary 10,002,541 British Virgin Islands 13,195 Serbia 9,979,116 Anguilla 10,424 Portugal 9,865,114 Nauru 10,273 Mali 9,653,261 Tuvalu 10,146 Somalia 9,639,151 Falkland Islands 2,758 Niger 9,113,001 Senegal 9,092,749 Tunisia 9,019,687 Sweden 8,900,954 Bulgaria 8,612,757 Dominican Republic 8,088,881 Austria 8,023,244 Azerbaijan 7,676,953 Guinea 7,411,981 Switzerland 7,207,060 Bolivia 7,165,257 Chad 6,976,845 Rwanda 6,853,359 Haiti 6,731,539 Burundi 5,943,057 Tajikistan 5,916,373 El Salvador 5,828,987 Benin 5,709,529 Honduras 5,605,193 Paraguay 5,504,146 Libya 5,445,436 Israel 5,421,995 Slovakia 5,374,362 Denmark 5,249,632 Georgia 5,219,810 Finland 5,105,230 Croatia 5,004,112 Laos 4,975,772 Sierra Leone 4,793,121 Togo 4,570,530 Kyrgyzstan 4,529,648 Moldova 4,463,847 Norway 4,383,807 Nicaragua 4,272,352 Jordan 4,212,152 Turkmenistan 4,149,283 Eritrea 3,909,628 Lebanon 3,776,317 Lithuania 3,646,041 Armenia 3,463,574 Costa Rica 3,463,083 Central African 3,274,426 Albania 3,249,136 Uruguay 3,238,952 United Arab Emirates 3,057,337 Bosnia and Herzegov. 2,656,240 Panama 2,655,094 Congo 2,527,841 Mongolia 2,496,617 Latvia 2,468,982 Mauritania 2,336,048 Oman 2,186,548 Liberia 2,109,789 Macedonia 2,104,035 Slovenia 1,951,443 Kuwait 1,950,047 Estonia 1,459,428 West Bank 1,427,741 Gambia, The 1,204,984 Gabon 1,172,798 Guinea-Bissau 1,151,330 Gaza Strip 923,940 Bahrain 590,042 Comoros 569,237 Qatar 547,761 Cape Verde 449,066 Equatorial Guinea 431,282 Djibouti 427,642 Luxembourg 415,870 Iceland 270,292 Western Sahara 222,631 Belize 219,296 Samoa 214,384 Vanuatu 177,504 Guam 156,974 Sao Tome 144,128 Micronesia 125,377 Andorra 72,766 American Samoa 63,786 Greenland 59,827 Marshall Islands 58,363 Northern Mariana 52,284 Monaco 31,719 Liechtenstein 31,122 Gibraltar 28,765 San Marino 24,521 Wallis and Futuna 14,659

Total 1,939,854,524 Total 3,824,562,670 34% 66%

Road network distribution

By Bob Goudreau, April 2001

Almost three-quarters of the world's highways are found in countries where traffic drives on the right.

The data in this table come from the US Central Intelligence Agency's World Fact Book 2000, available on the web at http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html. This book lists the size of each country's "highway" network, broken down into paved and unpaved subtotals. The book doesn't define what a "highway" is, or how many city streets or private roads are excluded from the totals, but I figure this is accurate a source of data as I am likely to find, and that the overall right/left distribution for non-highways is probably close to the distribution for highways. A few countries have missing or incomplete data and show as 0 km of both paved and unpaved highways; however, most such countries are tiny and therefore don't affect the global percentages appreciably. In a handful of cases, no paved/unpaved breakdown of the total was specified. Generally, these were tiny countries, and I classified their highways as 100% paved. Exceptions: Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Zambia were the only large countries where no breakdown was available; I arbitrarily used a breakdown of 10% paved and 90% unpaved.