According to Wikipedia, the story about Napoleon is legend with no basis in fact.
However, what is interesting is that road traffic statistics seem to suggest that driving on the left is safer. The theory is that the preponderance of right eye dominance results in statistically faster reactions to oncoming traffic if you drive on the left. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_or_left_side_of_the_road#History so that makes left right, and right wrong! Jeremy (still lurking, rarely QLing these days) > > >> You see, the 'continentals' only drive on the right because they >> have copied America (which makes me wonder why France drives on the >> right - but hey !) >> > > Actually according to several sources France drove on the right before > America made the switch from left to right after the War of > Independence. Wikipedia even goes so far as to say that they not only > did this to spite the British but to show gratitude to the French. Not > sure how true that point really is though. > Napoleon did the rest to spread right-side driving in Europe. > > >> So you see, we in the UK, Australia and so forth actually had first >> choice and led the way (ok, maybe not Australia, but we told them >> where to drive!) and everybody else copied the new and fashionable >> Americans :o) >> > > Well, historically using the left side made sense with all the swords > hanging on the left side and enemies approaching from the right. But > some parts of the world have moved on from there ;-) > Frankly, the right is my "good" hand and I do prefer hanging the left > uselessly out of the driver window while the other is doing all the > hard work ;-) > > Cheers, Marcel > > _______________________________________________ > QL-Users Mailing List > http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm > > > _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
