On 09/07/2014 12:36 PM, Chris wrote:
On Tuesday, 8 July 2014 at 21:01:46 UTC, Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d
And everyone should drive on the left.
Driving on the left goes back to the times when coaches (carriages) were
still in use. This was to avoid that drivers would accidentally hit each
other with their whips when a coach would come from the opposite
direction. No joke. As regards cars, driving on the left is highly
unintuitive for most people as the majority of drivers are right-handed.
There is no ergonomic or technical reason why cars should drive on the
left. In most parts of the world driving on the right was adopted from
early on as it is more intuitive (for most people).
Driving on the left actually originates from jousting. On a tilting yard
each combatant rides on the right side and aims their lance across their
body at the opponent in the lane on the left. When knights passed each
other out on the roads, the would do so on the left side so show that
they were not hostile. The whole of Europe took up this practice, and
used to always ride, drive carts and march as a body of men on the left.
Then a chap called Napoleon came along and used a guerilla tactic to
trick his enemy by marching on the right so that his troops looked like
they were travelling in the opposite direction. Eventually driving on
the wrong side became the norm for all the regions of Europe that
Napoleon conquered, and it spread as a matter of practicality to
adjacent regions over time. Napoleon was defeated by the English because
this trick does not work at sea. The UK still drives on the correct side
because there is no problem with having to swap sides when crossing land
borders. It is also an act that commemorates that historic victory.
Or at least that is what I learned in school ^^
A...
