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It would be way more annoying for LHT countries to change to RHT than to switch from US units to metric, have to change literally every road sign, street light,
by ifwinterco 3mo ago
It would be way more annoying for LHT countries to change to RHT than to switch from US units to metric, have to change literally every road sign, street light, road markings etc in the entire country.
Plus everyone would then be driving cars with the steering wheel on the wrong side for decades until the whole fleet got eventually replaced.
Countries have done it before, but I think there's a reason not many countries have done it since the mid 20th century when roads and cars were a lot simpler and there were fewer of them.
Switching to metric could be done gradually - replacing existing signs with metric ones only when they wear out, building new systems in metric while still using US units for the old ones.
There's no way to gradually switch from LHT to RHT, you have to somehow do a switchover in a day
- SideburnsOfDoom 3mo ago> It would be way more annoying for LHD countries to change to RHD As a complete aside, 1 country has done this: Sweden on 3 September 1967 and "It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden's history" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
- cwmma 3mo agoIceland did it a year later, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dagurinn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dagurinn, but since there was less then 200k people living there it was a much less dramatic change
- qingcharles 3mo agoFalkland Islands did it for a brief second, though not by choice.
- ifwinterco 3mo agoIIRC a lot more countries did it but mostly a lot earlier (pre ww2). Back then it would have been comparatively easy, cars were slow and there were barely any street signs etc anyway
- ghaff 3mo agoAnd the US and various other countries (like the UK) effectively use hybrid systems for units for many purposes. Science and engineering in the US are heavily metric.
- NordStreamYacht 3mo ago> There's no way to gradually switch from LHT to RHT, you have to somehow do a switchover in a day You could do it in phases. Have the trucks switch over on Monday, buses on Tuesday ...
- GJim 3mo agoAnd we would want to do that because......
- einherjae 3mo agoWe can take jokes…
- GJim 3mo agoJim Davidson has displayed greater wit and comedy.
- NordStreamYacht 3mo agoWho is Jim Davidson when he's at home?
- NordStreamYacht 3mo agoBecause it would be the cause of much mirth?
- ksec 3mo agoI used to think about whether we can get more countries switching back to LHT, but with Autonomous Vehicles that will no longer be much of an issue in 10 - 20 years time.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3mo agoI am told that Left Hand Drive is marginally safer (all other things being equal) because of the preponderance of right-handed people. Driving on the left of the road places the right-handed driver's dominant hand on the wheel and dominant eye towards the centre of the road and oncoming traffic. However this is not an argument in favour of 20th century style, non-autonomous individual vehicles as the main transit solution. There are safer and better ways. Autonomous Vehicles will hopefully play a role in that.
- KineticLensman 3mo agoYou'd also have things like bus doors now being on the wrong side (traffic-side), road curvature being wrong (e.g. motorway junctions and entry/exit ramps), let alone car mirrors and driver positioning.