The origin of Right Hand Drive and Left Hand Drive - why ?

**Spike** · 21-11-2018, 11:51 PM

l was discussing the above with a mate, l would be interested in our learned members opinions

**wbute** · 22-11-2018, 05:31 AM

Yeah not sure. You get on a horse from the left hand side. The sword was used with your right hand by most people, so horses passed each other on the left side of the track. Hence the British driving on the left of the road. The rest of the world must have been left handed??

**axistr** · 22-11-2018, 06:47 AM

The yanks originally drove on the left. You can blame Henry Ford, he decided to mass produce left hand drive vehicles and due to the large numbers or cars he was spitting out other car manufacturers followed suit.

**Sandaro** · 22-11-2018, 07:42 AM

I thought it was the yanks too with centre mount gearshift for the right hand in cars (therefore sitting on the left) but a quick google search says it goes back way before cars.

In summary what I found out was traditionally people walked or rode horses on the left of the road, sword on left then didn't hit people passing other way and could combat right hand if challenged by oncomers.

Then in the late 1700s the yanks and some other larger Europeans where using mega wagons with big teams of horses and the driver sat on the left rear horse and whipped the team up the middle with his right arm. And the drove on the right so they could see they were clearing oncoming traffic. So it was about then that these countries legislated for travelling on the right.

The English and colonies steadfastly stood by the left hand side.

Learnt something new today, Pre-dates cars, which I had always thought was the cause of the rift