What is Digg?Sponsored by HTC
You and You and You. view!
youtube.com - You don't need to get a phone. You need a phone that gets you.
39 Comments
- R3publican, on 10/19/2009, -1/+33You pay taxes on the whole road. Why not use it?
- FallingDonkey, on 10/19/2009, -3/+24I use my new jet pack. Sure, my legs look like raisins and are non functional because of the intense heat, but damn if they don't look sexy dangling in the air when I'm zipping about. I fly to the right of oncoming birds though.
- tange1, on 10/19/2009, -0/+14Always wondered: What happens at the border of 2 nations where they drive on different sides of the road? How do you smoothly transition that? I'm probably just over thinking it..
- hasslinthehoff, on 10/19/2009, -8/+21If you live in Ireland, you might be driving on both sides of the road because you're drunk as a skunk.
- dslfreakdude, on 10/19/2009, -0/+12you're actually under-thinking it.
1) make one-way streets
2) make warning signs @ end of said streets - Jedakiah, on 10/19/2009, -0/+9There is actually a whole Wikipedia section dedicated to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_ ...
Generally there are exchanges that make it effortless, but in some crossings they literally just let you wing it and put signs up saying you better switch sides. - TehUberGeeK, on 10/19/2009, -0/+7Being in the passenger seat while in the US Virgin Islands must be terrifying.
- waydee, on 10/19/2009, -3/+10Surely it's preferable to have the dominant hand on the steering wheel at all times?
And for the record, 60 million Brits find their left hand shifts gears just fine. - Mujokan, on 10/19/2009, -2/+9Hanging prepositions are something up with which I will not put!
- cjw10, on 10/19/2009, -0/+6You don't have a smooth transition, you let border patrol enjoy the fireworks.
- crazyhorse13, on 10/19/2009, -0/+6Vikings.
- renesisx, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5I just brought my right-hand drive classic Mini over from the UK to the USA.
I love the expressions on people's faces as I drive on the highway. If they're alongside me on the right and look over, they have this "WTF?!" look.
Also funny: Drive-thru windows. They look down and there is no-one there! - R3publican, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5It's harder to throw beer bottles into oncoming traffic though.
- gizram84, on 10/19/2009, -3/+8for right handed people, driving on the right makes more sense. it also helps with shifting gears.
- rockrapdude, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5Odd-numbered days are left-days, even-numbered days are right-days is the actual solution.
- lurrch1, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5The customs of one North American city does not apply to the whole continent.
- TheEngineer2008, on 10/19/2009, -0/+5I thought shifting with my left hand would be tricky as well until I tried it. It was fine.
The worse part of driving on the alternate side, IMO, is the column stalk layout. The turn signal lever on a RHD vehicle is on the right, while it's on the left on a LHD vehicle (it's closest to the window -- probably because it replaced hand signals, which were made outside the window). As a result, I'd occasionally hit the wiper lever instead of the turn signal lever when signaling a turn. - TheEngineer2008, on 10/19/2009, -0/+4Why do you say "insist"? There surely ought to be a standard. Otherwise we'd all walk into one another.
I believe in most countries pedestrians walk on the same side on which they drive. In Japan, for example, pedestrians pass on the left (and in Japan, they really do insist on it). - murrayc1968, on 10/19/2009, -0/+4When we were in Jamaica on vacation, one of our bus drivers made the comment "In Jamaica, Mon, the left side is the right side, and the right side is suicide"
- riddlemod, on 10/19/2009, -1/+3On the other hand... for right handed people, driving from the right side of a car makes more sense. It also helps with controlling the wheel while you're shifting.
Two equally valid sides to the same argument...? This cannot be! - cjw10, on 10/19/2009, -0/+2If you have two people converging head-on you ALWAYS go to your right...
Otherwise you both end up in that endless cycle of both trying to go the same way, while standing in each others face until one finally decides to stop trying and says "...go..." - R3publican, on 10/19/2009, -0/+2I enjoy seeing dangling modifiers browsing Digg.
- Turious, on 10/19/2009, -0/+2It really is. I visited family there a year or two ago and I couldn't watch the road while riding for the first day I was there without freaking out a bit.
- arsevader, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1I think proximity to other countries plays a huge role too. For a long time the UK was cut off from the rest of Europe in terms of driving so it didn't matter if they drove on the opposite side from the rest of Europe.
Canada is a prime example, a former British Colony yet we drive on the right due to being direct neighbours with the US. - bushout, on 10/19/2009, -2/+3In North America and possibly other places they insist on passing on the right when WALKING. Other parts of the world don't have any 'agreement' in place. Being a foreigner here, I've actually seen people nearly walk into walls as they try to pass me, dilly dallying on the left of a corridor.
- Alabaster1234, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1How do you explain hockey then? Did Canada invade the US and Eastern Europe?
- gkiltz, on 10/20/2009, -0/+1The greatest majority made their decisions not long after the automobile came into widespread use in that country. Only a few like Sweden, and Sierra Leone have EVER changed!
When they do, it's either a factor of what the surrounding countries are doing or a factor of where the majority of cars at the time are coming from.
For example, in the US, we drive on the right. Fairly unusual among English Speaking countries. Why?
Best guess: In the days before mass production of Automobiles, most of our actual technology was French. OK, Henry Ford was the first to mass produce automobiles, but he was not the first to build cars in America. That distinction belongs to two French-immigrant brothers named Duryea.
Up until Henry Ford. the cars built in America were built with French technology and either French or German expertise. It was only once we started to mass-produce, that we started to home-grow technology. By then, France was already standardized on the right.
BTW-Prior to 1949 Newfoundland was not part of Canada. It was a separate British colony.
In 1947 the vote was held on whether to join Canada. The remainder of 1947, and 1948 were spent changing everything from the British standard to the Canadian Standard. At the time , the UK itself did not have a single voltage for it's electrical grid, every place you went was different. There were something like 6 different voltages just in London.
This actually made it easier for Newfoundland, because they could just make the Canadian standard, which was already used in some parts of the Territory the standard.
They changed from left driving to right driving in 1948. Most of the cars there at the time were from the US, and had Left-hand Drive.
One legacy of left driving that Canada kept for decades. I don't know if this is still done, but as recently as the late 1980s, the US auto makers used to make just a few, 5000 or so of the most popular models, of their cars at the Canadian plants with the right-hand drive for export to places like the Bahamas, Trinidad, Jamaica, etc. They made them in Canada because import/export within the Commonwealth was so much cheaper that it more than offset the extra distance. - ohreilly, on 10/20/2009, -0/+1NI is part of the UK, it is joined to Ireland, a country in Europe.
I was suggesting that the UK isn't quite cut off from the rest of Europe thanks to that land border. - beahmad, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Dramatically decreasing the clarity of a sentence just to avoid hanging a modifier is silly, no matter what style you/your company ascribes to.
- ohreilly, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1"The turn signal lever on a RHD vehicle is on the right"
It is on the left in my RHD vehicle. The right stalk (in my case) does wipers. Makes sense really, since I can push it down as I turn the wheel left, and push it up as I turn it to the right. - HavocXphere, on 10/20/2009, -0/+1Depends on make of car not driving side afaik. Over here (Driving left)
German car -> "turn signal"/indicator on left of steering wheel
Japanese/Asian car -> "turn signal"/indicator on right of steering wheel
Not sure about other places but over here that rule is pretty much rock solid. - HavocXphere, on 10/20/2009, -0/+1Not really. Shifting gears w/ left hand is not difficult & doesn't required surgical precision anyway.
I guess everyone is inherently biased in this discussion. - arsevader, on 10/19/2009, -0/+1Not sure of your point.
Both NI and Republic of Ireland drive on the left. - lennyd44, on 10/20/2009, -0/+1And US is one of three countries that still uses English unit...
- inactive, on 10/19/2009, -2/+2This is also why soccer is the most popular sport in the world, the British pretty much damn near colonized most of the world and left it as their mark.
Comparatively the US occupied Japan, Puerto Rico and Dominican Islands and because of, that baseball is popular there. - spycat, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1Grammar FTW!
- ohreilly, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1"For a long time the UK was cut off from the rest of Europe in terms of driving so it didn't matter if they drove on the opposite side from the rest of Europe."
I don't think we've broken off from Ireland yet, and they are part of Europe.
The Channel Tunnel doesn't really count - it isn't a true land border like the NI - Ireland one is. - calebian, on 10/19/2009, -1/+1one outdated reason after another. most involving horses. sheesh. why can all directions get along?
- Eurynom0s, on 10/19/2009, -8/+1Did anybody else read that as "***** gears" and get horribly confused?
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is