5 ms·

Why mad? I see plenty of people in the states with RHD vehicles that mostly seem to be Japanese imports, rarely it’ll be a fancy UK vehicle. (In WA state) It s

Why mad? I see plenty of people in the states with RHD vehicles that mostly seem to be Japanese imports, rarely it’ll be a fancy UK vehicle. (In WA state) It seems to carry a bit of fashion but not sure if it would translate the same to other places like the UK for example. I personally wouldn’t want a RHD vehicle but more for practicality/parts availability Edit: not attempting to vouch for Tesla in this case at all, this reacher is ridiculous and a bad move imo

dharmab 3y ago
There's two major safety issues: You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass. But much more importantly, car headlights aren't symmetrical. The one pointing towards the oncoming lane has a "cut" beam to avoid blinding other drivers while the other has a taller beam to improve visibility of anything entering the road. When you drive LHD in a RHD country, or vice versa, you are blinding other drivers while having low visibility of pedestrians and animals. Technology Connections did a great video about this. His solution was to stop driving his RHD car in low light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Headlight regulations seem to be mostly ignored by manufactures of modern cars. Modern LED headlights are insanely bright, and seem to be unfocused or not set up with any kind of "cut" beam. Driving at night is now sort of a game where you get blinded by oncoming headlight glare every minute or two and then hope your night vision recovers in time for you to avoid hitting something you can't see. It might be good for drivers of these cars, but it's terrible for oncoming traffic.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    In driving school we were taught to look at the right shoulder when headlights are coming at you like that. Keeps you from being dazzled and keeps the car in the lane.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      Yes, I do that, but some of these new headlights are so bright it's only somewhat effective. In some cases it's people who have installed aftermarket super-bright lights, most of which don't comply with DOT regulations in the slightest but they are still allowed to be sold "for off-road use only." But often enough it seems to be new cars with the stock headlights from the manufacturer.
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        My car has a setting with the lights where the brights are always on and theoretically auto dim when a car approaches. I never use it because brights lack peripheral view which is more important than straight on with a lighted road, but I wonder if a lot of people leave it on and the dimming setting just doesn’t work that well for real world conditions.
    - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
      Whoa — that's simple and brilliant. (Obvious in hindsight, I suppose, like many good ideas.) I do something similar intuitively, but I'm going to start looking at the shoulder much more explicitly now. "Driving school" wasn't a standardized thing back when I got my license — in many places, you can just stroll in, pass the driving test, and be on your way. So I guess I missed all the interesting tips they might share in a formal education environment... Any other learnings from driving school that you find yourself using often?
      - kjkjadksj 3y ago
        Well I did driving school in the US. You had to do it unless you wanted to wait till you were 18 to drive. Lets see we discussed how liability vs comprehensive insurance worked, how stopping distances relate to speed, certain state specific laws that might get you a ticket for not knowing them, plus a lot of in car experience building comfort driving at highway speeds with an instructor, or how to parallel park and ace the maneuverability. Stuff like changing tires and very basic maintenance like checking fluid levels too. This was over a decade ago so they probably covered more that I can’t recall. I will say I am a head and shoulders better parallel parker than a lot of other adults I know. Some people are in their 30s and still do not know how to parallel park, give up, even have me do it with their own car sometimes.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
    > avoid hitting something you can't see This is extra fun for those of us living in high deer-population areas!
- yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
  You can have the headlights converted. Shouldn't be that big of a deal.
- stonogo 3y ago
  Higher end cars have hardware to deal with this. You activate a setting called "tourist mode" and the headlight reflectors shift to make the beam throw symmetrical. On older cars it's a physical lever under the hood, and on newer cars it's a software setting the dealer must enable.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  I cannot say in the US, but AFAIK in Europe you need to change headlights (or modify them) to have a license plate (for an imported car), i.e. while having the steering wheel on the "wrong" side is allowed, headlights need to be conforming to the local standard or it won't pass the inspection. Some recent cars have easy ways to modify the beams, but most need some specialized intervention or, in the worst cases, even replacement.
- gertrunde 3y ago
  IIRC European cars are required to handle this gracefully. Some newer cars (at least 2016-ish onwards, potentially before this) adjust automatically based on GPS location from the navigation system.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  Teslas are starting to come with matrix lights - does this solve this problem by making it a software setting?
  - dogma1138 3y ago
    No you still won’t be able to see well because of where the driver is located relative to the headlight beams.
  - dharmab 3y ago
    Other commenters noted that many European models have dynamic lights that tie this to GPS location.
- yreg 3y ago
  Teslas are supposed to configure headlights between LHD/RHD automatically based on GPS. Although from my (single) experience of driving to UK it didn’t work.
SoftTalker 3y ago
I mainly see it (in the USA) with contract rural mail carriers. They often use RHD Jeeps or Subarus so they can reach roadside mailboxes. And of course the official USPS residential delivery vehicles are mostly RHD. Occasionally you see some cars fitted with contraptions that use cables and pulleys to allow control of a LHD car from the right front seat. I'm surprised these are legal.
fredoralive 3y ago
I suppose it's a bit different from small scale personal imports or niche exotica being wrong side, to having a large manufacturer selling fairly large numbers of LHD cars new? It's certainly not normal for the UK for anything new to be LHD, there's even an RHD Chevrolet Corvette nowadays...
cjs_ac 3y ago
Driving in the UK is very different to driving in America, because British roads are very different to American roads. Most British roads predate motor cars. Much of the road network is mediaeval, some is Roman, at least one road is pre-Roman. This[0] is a section of the Icknield Way, the oldest road in Britain. The carriageway is the width of one vehicle. If you meet an oncoming vehicle, either you or the other driver must reverse into a passing place, like the dirt area visible in the link. This[1] is the A40; until the construction of the M40 motorway, this was the road from London to Oxford. There is a white centre line, but because of the parked cars, this centre line is useless. You can see cars straddling the line, but it is a tight fit in this village. In morning and evening traffic, one normally needs to stop to let oncoming traffic pass. It's important to know the width of your vehicle, and to be able to correctly judge your position in the road, as well as the position of oncoming traffic. This is much easier to do when your eyes are closer to the centre line. Here[2] is a junction that is particularly problematic in traffic for similar reasons. This[3] is a roundabout, which is more effective at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights in low to medium traffic conditions. The basic principle is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout, which requires good visibility to the right. It is crucial to be able to judge this instantly to maintain traffic flow and to prevent the formation of traffic jams, which is easiest when in a RHD drive vehicle. On a mini-roundabout[4], the 'give way to traffic already on the roundabout' principle becomes 'give way to the right' - again, visibility to the right is improved in a RHD vehicle. The cognitive load for navigating a roundabout is increased for the double roundabout[5] and reaches a maximum at the infamous magic roundabout[6]. RHD vehicles help with this. Here[7] is a bus stop. There's no lay by for it; it's just in the road, which happens to be a major trunk road. In morning traffic, school buses will stop here, and traffic needs to overtake the stopped bus. While there is a central reservation, it's a tight fit for larger vehicles, and the ability to see oncoming traffic is crucial. Again, RHD is needed here. Overtaking is vitally important when driving in the UK, not only because of stopped or parked vehicles. Vehicles that cannot keep up with modern traffic are much more common in the UK than America, such as horses with buggies, or traction engines[8]. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6170961,-1.0404844,3a,75y,211.46h,69.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sr8mS3zqgEjn6cO6yLbS8iA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6170961,-1.0404844,3a,75y,21... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6445943,-0.8029467,3a,75y,269.75h,84.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAHgqWZamtCxKVDt91_8hKw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6445943,-0.8029467,3a,75y,26... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6450754,-1.0041556,3a,75y,218.86h,74.06t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sESw-41wHJvKRkSL5rsKjLQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DESw-41wHJvKRkSL5rsKjLQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.604614%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6450754,-1.0041556,3a,75y,21... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6064949,-0.6935902,3a,75y,130.1h,77.21t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAEWY538tPLzgDJIqIsPcKg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DAEWY538tPLzgDJIqIsPcKg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D1.696512%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6064949,-0.6935902,3a,75y,13... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6449846,-0.731184,3a,75y,120.86h,73.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stIgLemWUq7bve_4ClYcXuA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6449846,-0.731184,3a,75y,120... [5] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6684331,-0.7022783,3a,75y,311.77h,72.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVyzHfF_6VNVGyU-I_i5-zg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6684331,-0.7022783,3a,75y,31... [6] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628488,-1.7715014,130m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628488,-1.7715014,130m/data... [7] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6412382,-0.7853479,3a,75y,286.12h,71.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWlpCbVA5zK3vTSsM1V8n9g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6412382,-0.7853479,3a,75y,28... [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH5pRQwlxc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH5pRQwlxc4

dharmab 3y ago

There's two major safety issues: You can't see around cars to be able to pass. Okay, so you often don't pass. But much more importantly, car headlights aren't symmetrical. The one pointing towards the oncoming lane has a "cut" beam to avoid blinding other drivers while the other has a taller beam to improve visibility of anything entering the road. When you drive LHD in a RHD country, or vice versa, you are blinding other drivers while having low visibility of pedestrians and animals. Technology Connections did a great video about this. His solution was to stop driving his RHD car in low light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2J91UG6Fn8

SoftTalker 3y ago
Headlight regulations seem to be mostly ignored by manufactures of modern cars. Modern LED headlights are insanely bright, and seem to be unfocused or not set up with any kind of "cut" beam. Driving at night is now sort of a game where you get blinded by oncoming headlight glare every minute or two and then hope your night vision recovers in time for you to avoid hitting something you can't see. It might be good for drivers of these cars, but it's terrible for oncoming traffic.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  In driving school we were taught to look at the right shoulder when headlights are coming at you like that. Keeps you from being dazzled and keeps the car in the lane.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    Yes, I do that, but some of these new headlights are so bright it's only somewhat effective. In some cases it's people who have installed aftermarket super-bright lights, most of which don't comply with DOT regulations in the slightest but they are still allowed to be sold "for off-road use only." But often enough it seems to be new cars with the stock headlights from the manufacturer.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      My car has a setting with the lights where the brights are always on and theoretically auto dim when a car approaches. I never use it because brights lack peripheral view which is more important than straight on with a lighted road, but I wonder if a lot of people leave it on and the dimming setting just doesn’t work that well for real world conditions.
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 3y ago
    Whoa — that's simple and brilliant. (Obvious in hindsight, I suppose, like many good ideas.) I do something similar intuitively, but I'm going to start looking at the shoulder much more explicitly now. "Driving school" wasn't a standardized thing back when I got my license — in many places, you can just stroll in, pass the driving test, and be on your way. So I guess I missed all the interesting tips they might share in a formal education environment... Any other learnings from driving school that you find yourself using often?
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      Well I did driving school in the US. You had to do it unless you wanted to wait till you were 18 to drive. Lets see we discussed how liability vs comprehensive insurance worked, how stopping distances relate to speed, certain state specific laws that might get you a ticket for not knowing them, plus a lot of in car experience building comfort driving at highway speeds with an instructor, or how to parallel park and ace the maneuverability. Stuff like changing tires and very basic maintenance like checking fluid levels too. This was over a decade ago so they probably covered more that I can’t recall. I will say I am a head and shoulders better parallel parker than a lot of other adults I know. Some people are in their 30s and still do not know how to parallel park, give up, even have me do it with their own car sometimes.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  > avoid hitting something you can't see This is extra fun for those of us living in high deer-population areas!
yakshaving_jgt 3y ago
You can have the headlights converted. Shouldn't be that big of a deal.
stonogo 3y ago
Higher end cars have hardware to deal with this. You activate a setting called "tourist mode" and the headlight reflectors shift to make the beam throw symmetrical. On older cars it's a physical lever under the hood, and on newer cars it's a software setting the dealer must enable.
jaclaz 3y ago
I cannot say in the US, but AFAIK in Europe you need to change headlights (or modify them) to have a license plate (for an imported car), i.e. while having the steering wheel on the "wrong" side is allowed, headlights need to be conforming to the local standard or it won't pass the inspection. Some recent cars have easy ways to modify the beams, but most need some specialized intervention or, in the worst cases, even replacement.
gertrunde 3y ago
IIRC European cars are required to handle this gracefully. Some newer cars (at least 2016-ish onwards, potentially before this) adjust automatically based on GPS location from the navigation system.
thebruce87m 3y ago
Teslas are starting to come with matrix lights - does this solve this problem by making it a software setting?
- dogma1138 3y ago
  No you still won’t be able to see well because of where the driver is located relative to the headlight beams.
- dharmab 3y ago
  Other commenters noted that many European models have dynamic lights that tie this to GPS location.
yreg 3y ago
Teslas are supposed to configure headlights between LHD/RHD automatically based on GPS. Although from my (single) experience of driving to UK it didn’t work.

SoftTalker 3y ago

I mainly see it (in the USA) with contract rural mail carriers. They often use RHD Jeeps or Subarus so they can reach roadside mailboxes. And of course the official USPS residential delivery vehicles are mostly RHD. Occasionally you see some cars fitted with contraptions that use cables and pulleys to allow control of a LHD car from the right front seat. I'm surprised these are legal.

fredoralive 3y ago

I suppose it's a bit different from small scale personal imports or niche exotica being wrong side, to having a large manufacturer selling fairly large numbers of LHD cars new? It's certainly not normal for the UK for anything new to be LHD, there's even an RHD Chevrolet Corvette nowadays...

cjs_ac 3y ago

Driving in the UK is very different to driving in America, because British roads are very different to American roads. Most British roads predate motor cars. Much of the road network is mediaeval, some is Roman, at least one road is pre-Roman. This[0] is a section of the Icknield Way, the oldest road in Britain. The carriageway is the width of one vehicle. If you meet an oncoming vehicle, either you or the other driver must reverse into a passing place, like the dirt area visible in the link. This[1] is the A40; until the construction of the M40 motorway, this was the road from London to Oxford. There is a white centre line, but because of the parked cars, this centre line is useless. You can see cars straddling the line, but it is a tight fit in this village. In morning and evening traffic, one normally needs to stop to let oncoming traffic pass. It's important to know the width of your vehicle, and to be able to correctly judge your position in the road, as well as the position of oncoming traffic. This is much easier to do when your eyes are closer to the centre line. Here[2] is a junction that is particularly problematic in traffic for similar reasons. This[3] is a roundabout, which is more effective at maintaining traffic flow than traffic lights in low to medium traffic conditions. The basic principle is to give way to traffic already on the roundabout, which requires good visibility to the right. It is crucial to be able to judge this instantly to maintain traffic flow and to prevent the formation of traffic jams, which is easiest when in a RHD drive vehicle. On a mini-roundabout[4], the 'give way to traffic already on the roundabout' principle becomes 'give way to the right' - again, visibility to the right is improved in a RHD vehicle. The cognitive load for navigating a roundabout is increased for the double roundabout[5] and reaches a maximum at the infamous magic roundabout[6]. RHD vehicles help with this. Here[7] is a bus stop. There's no lay by for it; it's just in the road, which happens to be a major trunk road. In morning traffic, school buses will stop here, and traffic needs to overtake the stopped bus. While there is a central reservation, it's a tight fit for larger vehicles, and the ability to see oncoming traffic is crucial. Again, RHD is needed here. Overtaking is vitally important when driving in the UK, not only because of stopped or parked vehicles. Vehicles that cannot keep up with modern traffic are much more common in the UK than America, such as horses with buggies, or traction engines[8]. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6170961,-1.0404844,3a,75y,211.46h,69.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sr8mS3zqgEjn6cO6yLbS8iA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6170961,-1.0404844,3a,75y,21... [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6445943,-0.8029467,3a,75y,269.75h,84.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAHgqWZamtCxKVDt91_8hKw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6445943,-0.8029467,3a,75y,26... [2] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6450754,-1.0041556,3a,75y,218.86h,74.06t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sESw-41wHJvKRkSL5rsKjLQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DESw-41wHJvKRkSL5rsKjLQ%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.604614%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6450754,-1.0041556,3a,75y,21... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6064949,-0.6935902,3a,75y,130.1h,77.21t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sAEWY538tPLzgDJIqIsPcKg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DAEWY538tPLzgDJIqIsPcKg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D1.696512%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6064949,-0.6935902,3a,75y,13... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6449846,-0.731184,3a,75y,120.86h,73.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stIgLemWUq7bve_4ClYcXuA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6449846,-0.731184,3a,75y,120... [5] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6684331,-0.7022783,3a,75y,311.77h,72.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVyzHfF_6VNVGyU-I_i5-zg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6684331,-0.7022783,3a,75y,31... [6] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628488,-1.7715014,130m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5628488,-1.7715014,130m/data... [7] https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6412382,-0.7853479,3a,75y,286.12h,71.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWlpCbVA5zK3vTSsM1V8n9g!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@51.6412382,-0.7853479,3a,75y,28... [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH5pRQwlxc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH5pRQwlxc4