[Tagging] Driving side

[John F. Eldredge]

Note that the article states that many countries allow use of both left-hand-drive and right-hand-drive vehicles on their roadways, which contradicts your earlier blanket statement that you have to change vehicles when at a border between a left-hand-traffic country and a right-hand-traffic country.


On March 21, 2014 4:09:59 PM CDT, Fernando Trebien <fernando.trebien at gmail.com> wrote:
> Read this:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Driver_seating_position
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Restrictions_on_wrong-hand_drive_vehicles
> 
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:04 PM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Fernando Trebien
> > <fernando.trebien at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> A change of driver
> >> side requires either a change of vehicle or some special vehicle
> that
> >> can drive on both sides. In the case of your city, driving side
> >> changes, but driver side doesn't. You could include that in the
> >> description of "opposite".
> >
> >
> > I wish this urban legend would die already, because I know of no
> place on
> > the planet this is actually true.  If this were actually true, the
> US Postal
> > Service would have all of 3 vehicles in their multimillion-vehicle
> fleet
> > with the steering wheel on the "legal" side, and an ever growing
> population
> > of kei cars imported from Japan registered in Oklahoma would be
> "banned"
> > (they are in most states because Japan's domestic vehicles don't
> meet crash
> > standards in most states, whereas Oklahoma places a stronger
> emphasis on
> > driver ability than vehicle crash-worthiness than most states). The
> seating
> > position of the driver is merely a feature of convenience and
> largely up to
> > driver preference.  Most drivers prefer left hand drive in
> keep-right
> > countries, and right hand drive in keep-left countries because it
> greatly
> > increases visibility when overtaking.  Having driven RHS vehicles in
> North
> > America, I can safely say it's not impossible, but you have to
> really
> > increase your run-up length to pass safely just because of the
> sightline
> > when looking to overtake.  Drivers who have to reach for curbside
> objects a
> > lot tend to prefer RHS vehicles because they don't have to step in
> traffic
> > or reach across the vehicle to, say, collect garbage, deliver mail,
> restripe
> > a curb, deliver a package, etc.
> >
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> >

-- 
John F. Eldredge -- john at jfeldredge.com
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.