Ireland driving on the Right?

Wishbone Ash

el tel wrote:

Something interesting from that site on the subject of exceptions to the national uniformity

United States of America

There is a rather dramatic segment of Interstate 5 where one drives on the left. It is on the Five Mile Grade coming into the Los Angeles area from the north.

:eek: :eek:

There is/was in Monaghan Town, two way street off a one way street. You have to enter the two way street (i.e. a right turn) on the right side. I think it leads to a public car park.

In lots of private shopping centre carparks in Dublin, one has to enter on the right as they are off one way streets. (It's to avoid having to cross over exiting traffic)

Gandhi

el tel wrote:

Anyone familiar with this place?

Yep. I used always think it was cool when my Dad drove over it on the wrong side. As far as I remember, there is a concrete median all the way along, so there is no danger of someone crossing over.

Hotblack Desiato

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Special instruction was given to the aged , the blind and guide dogs.

They let blind people drive in Sweden? :eek: :eek:

BnA

A slight variation from the point.... but...

I was watching some Canadian comedien the other night on the Comedy Channel from the Edinborough festival.

He was making a joke of the fact that in the UK (and Ireland) you can cross the street to park on the opposite side of the street. i.e. On a two way street with parking on both sides, you can park whereever you want.

According to him, this is illegal in Canada and the US. i.e. You can only park on the same side of the street that you can drive on.

Is this true ?

Sangre

yeah, have to face direction of traffic aswell afaik.

galwaytt

You can only park on the same side of the street that you can drive on.

Is this true ?

mmmm, I think so, just not 100%. When I lived in Bristol it was also only allowed to park on a certain side of the street on certain days, and always only on the same side you were driving on.

Good idea, actually.

spacetweek

BnA wrote:

According to him, this is illegal in Canada and the US. i.e. You can only park on the same side of the street that you can drive on.

Is this true ?

Yes, it's also illegal in Australia. It makes perfect sense - stops people doing u-eys into oncoming traffic.

Gandhi

BnA wrote:

According to him, this is illegal in Canada and the US. i.e. You can only park on the same side of the street that you can drive on.

Is this true ?

The law (in Philly at least) says if the street has a line down the middle then you can't park on "the wrong side". In practice this would mean any major road, and streets through business districts. The only streets you can park "the wrong way" on are quiet, residential streets, that don't justify a line down the middle.

spacetweek

Wishbone Ash wrote:

The weird thing was that, in Sweden, private cars always had the steering wheel on the left enen when they drove on the left.

If it happened here, it would make crossing the border interesting. :eek:

No they didn't, they used RHD models like ourselves. However, for several years before the change, all new cars sold had to be LHD so as to prepare. There would have been a few years then where if you bought a new car, the steering wheel would have been on the wrong side, but after the changeover you'd have the correct one and everyone else's car would be wrong. :rolleyes:

The changeover, though complex, was probably way easier back in the 60s then it would be now - I doubt there were many motorways in Sweden back then, if any, so it would mainly have been a case of moving all the road signs over to the other side of the road.

It certainly would make crossing the border interesting - since you don't have to stop for customs here, we'd have to have the N1 between Dundalk and Newry incorporate a traffic switchover where your side of the highway went up on a bridge and then over to the other side. I've never actually seen one of these in practice, though they do exist. I've crossed borders before where you had to change sides, but in each case both were developing countries and you had to stop for customs and transfer to another vehicle anyway, so it wasn't an issue. You just walked across and got into another vehicle.

All of the developed countries that drive on the left that I can think of are islands - UK, Japan, Australia, etc. There is one example I can think of of LHD and RHD mixing where one of the countries is developed - Hong Kong and mainland China. Google maps shows the crossover here.

If we changed, we'd have less Americans and Germans etc. crashing due to driving on the unfamiliar side - but this would be offset by more British people crashing. Argh!!

In other words, the whole idea is totally pointless without a similar move by the British - and they've a huge motorway network, so there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of it ever happening.

Wishbone Ash

BnA wrote:

According to him, this is illegal in Canada and the US.

It's illegal here too - it's just not enforced.

(There are hundreds of other largely unknown offences which are committed every day but the law is rarely enforced).

deman

kbannon wrote:

Didn't Jim McDaid try to change the side of the road we drive on?

Am I the only one that found that funny??

I'm in Finland. I drive on the right every day. The OP suggested it would take 4 years to convert, but it really should be done overnight as people would be running into each other all over the place :eek: :rolleyes:

Ireland has absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by changing over. It would be silly really. There are lots of things that should be done on Irish roads to make driving easier and better but this is definitely NOT one of them. One example (that is here in Finland and not in Ireland) of improving driving is that a car can only park on the left side of the road, therefore, facing the same direction as the traffic flow. Understand?

**EDIT**
OK. Been suggested already. Do the gardai even know about this law??

Guy:Incognito

Wishbone Ash wrote:

If it happened here, it would make crossing the border interesting. :eek:

Thats an interesting one. Are there many countries that drive on the left but are border by countries that drive on the right? The countries that drive on the left that I can think of off the top of my head are islands (uk, ireland, australia, japan).

I have visions of a scalextric style crossover at the border.

Wishbone Ash

Stekelly wrote:

Thats an interesting one. Are there many countries that drive on the left but are border by countries that drive on the right? The countries that drive on the left that I can think of off the top of my head are islands (uk, ireland, australia, japan).

I have visions of a scalextric style crossover at the border.

From my post here at 10am this morning:

Wisbone Ash wrote:

There are a few countries who share land borders and do not drive on similar sides. (They tend to be poorer countries with a less developed infrastructure).

Examples:

Afganistan/Pakistan
Thailand/Burma
China/Nepal
India/China
Kenya/Ethiopia
Namibia/Angola

Alun

From http://www.brianlucas.ca/roadside ...

In Cyprus, both North and South, they drive on the left. Malcolm Roe reports that in the North, most vehicles are right-hand-drive models which arrive via Turkey (thus you have left-hand-drive vehicles driven on the left-hand side of the road). Another correspondent reports that in the South, vehicles tend to be right-hand-drive models, which are imported from England, Japan, and other countries.

EDIT: In case anyone thinks I'm talking to myself here, I was replying to a post which seems to have disappeared in the meantime regarding North/South Cyprus.

Wishbone Ash

spacetweek wrote:

No they didn't, they used RHD models like ourselves. However, for several years before the change, all new cars sold had to be LHD so as to prepare. There would have been a few years then where if you bought a new car, the steering wheel would have been on the wrong side, but after the changeover you'd have the correct one and everyone else's car would be wrong.

According to my Britannica 1968 Yearbook - "Private cars (i.e. in Sweden) always had the steering wheel on the left".

The changeover, though complex, was probably way easier back in the 60s then it would be now - I doubt there were many motorways in Sweden back then, if any, so it would mainly have been a case of moving all the road signs over to the other side of the road.

It had 100,000 miles of road and Europe's highest car density at the time.

Pherekydes

Wishbone Ash wrote:

It had 100,000 miles of road and Europe's highest car density at the time.

It's a very big country, and it's citizenry have always been wealthy. How many cars do they have, or have they had, per road mile? To me that's the real measure of car density.

Just curious.

deman

Wishbone Ash wrote:

According to my Britannica 1968 Yearbook - "Private cars (i.e. in Sweden) always had the steering wheel on the left".

That's what I always believed too. Remember, I'm in a country neighbouring Sweden and I do know a few older people that were driving in Sweden at the time of the changeover. They say that Sweden ALWAYS had LHCs even though they drove on the left.

G Luxel

Ok well thanks for all your thoughts.
A few things have come to mind since.

Sweden's cars were always left hand drive, even though they drove like us on the left. The Swedes thought it was strange for the steering wheel to be on the right hand side of the car. Checking through loads of Volvo and Saab archives from Sweden and also accessing photographs of Swedish streets in the 50s showed all cars with the steering wheel on the left. Thousands of Rootes and BMC cars exported to Sweden from the I940s upwards featured the steering wheel on the left. Only buses were right hand drive. After I967Some of these buses were exported on trial to Belfast and Scotland as all buses would now be featuring the steering wheel on the left. Citroen had to sell all their swedish market 2 cv's in Britain in I966.

It did take four years for the system to be implimented into swedish society. On September 3rd, I967 the system went into operation straight away. The policy was known as Dagen H. The implimentation of the system was even labelled on people's underwear.

Somalia at present doesnt seem to know what side of the road to drive on, given the instablity of the country. Ghana forced LHD in I972 and all the cars had to be given the treatment as well. Australia doesn't allow LHD cars on the continent so they must be converted. Gibraltar, even though an English colony, has left hand drive as standard and drives on the left.
Afghanistan has thousands of right hand drive japanese imports driving on the right. Italian lorries and Lancia cars were RHD in Italy in the 50s and 60s.
Vietnam banned the import of japanese imports in 200I as there were too many of them.... Vladivostock in Siberia is home to thousands of RHD japanese imports even though it drives on the right.

Wishbone Ash

G Luxel wrote:

Sweden's cars were always left hand drive..... .... Only buses were right hand drive

Presumably, when Sweden drove on the left, buses had to be RHD as they would have had to pick up/set down passengers on the left hand side of the road.

(Just as a matter of interest, Aircoach are forced to order their buses with an additional centre right hand side entry door as their allocated bus stop in Dublin Airport is on the right side of the arrivals road.)

Fratton Fred

G Luxel wrote:

Citroen had to sell all their swedish market 2 cv's in Britain in I966.

so I can blame the Swedes for the large number of 2CVs in Britain. Bastards:D

Wibbs

Meh RHD is IMHO the better layout. Unless you're of the left handed persuasion your most co ordinated hand is your right which should be doing the steering when changing gear. Gear changing takes far less finesse. Look at people driving LHD cars when they're cruising along they tend to have their right hand on the wheel and their left hand doing nada.

testicle

peasant wrote:

Every single motorway/dual carriageway on- and offramp would have to be re-engineered.

No they wouldn't. What was the off ramp, now becomes the on ramp and vice versa.

peasant

testicle wrote:

No they wouldn't. What was the off ramp, now becomes the on ramp and vice versa.

theoretically correct ...but when you take a closer look you will find that there are a lot of solutions out there that only work one way. Not necessecarily the bit directly on/off the motorway/dual carriagway but straight before or after.

peasant

Wibbs wrote:

Meh RHD is IMHO the better layout. Unless you're of the left handed persuasion your most co ordinated hand is your right which should be doing the steering when changing gear. Gear changing takes far less finesse. Look at people driving LHD cars when they're cruising along they tend to have their right hand on the wheel and their left hand doing nada.

I would disagree (I drive both). Being 150% right handed (my left is just there for balance, really) I find it much better to be able to use my more dextrous right as my "free" hand. Things like shifting gear, adjusting the radio, wiping the condensation off the windscreen, adjusting the heater, etc fall much easier to hand.

tabatha

drove for the first time in america recently and found it a doddle thanks to sat nav. cant imagine driving on the right though with roundabouts. at least in the us there arent any, so i have been told. why do we drive on the left does anyone know?

Fratton Fred

tabatha wrote:

why do we drive on the left does anyone know?

because you carry your sword in your right hand. Ride your horse on the left hand side of the highway and you can always defend yourself from someone coming the other direction.

what, you don't carry your sword in your right hand?:eek:

Max_Damage

G Luxel wrote:

Vladivostock in Siberia is home to thousands of RHD japanese imports even though it drives on the right.

About 90% of all cars in East Russia are RHD's Jap imports, even many police cars are Jap imports as well! (according to Wikipedia).

why do we drive on the left does anyone know?

Also becasue of the British Empire.

Wishbone Ash

Ah, the advantages of the tractor - Centre Hand Drive. :D (albeit with the gear selectors on the right nowadays)

Seth Brundle

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Ah, the advantages of the tractor - Centre Hand Drive. :D (albeit with the gear selectors on the right nowadays)

When I think of CHD I think of the Mclaren F1 - I wouldn't have thought of a tractor!

digweed

knowing our governement if they wanted to bring it in they'd want to do it on a phased basis. they'd probably start with hgv's first!!!

D.