Why Do The British Drive On The Left? - Carfection 

When I was in a taxi between Varanasi, India and the local airport, the driver would drive down the middle on the road. He pulled to the left only when another car approached. I asked him why he did that. He responded 'So the other driver can see me coming'. Yes, India has a horrendous road toll any way you care to measure it (per capita, per km traveled, per 100k cars, etc).

2 lane road??????

he is defenetly a watch guy, and i think also Catchpole is. He also made a comment in the last video about dive watches. I guess he wants the practicality of the smartwatch but still wants to wear a mechanical.

yungdadi # easy ... One for each eye. Simple as that.

Left and right handed options ;0)

Apple Watch for the tech and regular watch for people who like regular watches.

snakerb Apple watch is crap tech ever

There's a counter argument to that being the majority of people are right-handed, so it would make sense that your primary steering hand would be your strongest and hence right hand. You can change gears and use everything in the console with your non-primary hand whilst ensuring that you have better control of the steering and hence the movement of the car. Thus, you would need to sit on the right of the car.

There already is. You wear the watch on the hand opposite of your "main" hand. So if you're a lefty, wear it on your right hand. /Mainly because if you're right-handed for example, you are going to use that right hand for almost everything in your life. So the watch might become uncomfortable and there's a bigger risque to damage it or get stuck to something.

Daniel 1992 I'm a lefty and I wear it on my left hand, I got used to it I guess

Jay Dee you are supposed to wear your watch behind the wrist protruding bone so the dial won't interfere with the movement of your hand

But then, how do you write? I'm right handed and if I try to write something (in a book, using a pen, not on the keyboard) I simply can't because my hand is sort of resting on the watch band instead of the paper as I'm used to. Anyway, probably getting used to it like you said.

Daniel 1992 I've always written with my hand bent in a very left-handed way, so I guess I was already writting in an uncomfortable position even before using a watch. Lol idk

In a Model T you can also change to some gears on foot, I drove one and it's nearly a nightmare haha

And why should we when the majority of people are right handed?

@@notthefather3919 did you mean: “why shouldn’t we?” Well because it takes most people’s dominant hand away from the wheel. Meaning your ‘weaker’ hand is controlling where your 1 ton beast is going! Your dominant hand does signalling and steering and your left does everything else

Excellently explained, except that it's completely wrong. Riding your horse on the left goes back to jousting days.

Alan F Brookes, you really did not think that one through did you? Archaeological evidence shows people all over the world walked and rode on the left for thousands of years before jousting was invented in around the 11th Century. The depth of hoof marks from horses leaving laden from the likes of mines compared to those entering the mines unladen is just one clear proof that mankind always originally used the left hand side for the reasons that are, as I stated, clearly explained in the above video. If you watch men approaching each other on a pavement in over 90 per cent of cases if room allows they will pass each other right shoulder to right shoulder, i.e on the left. Extensive Human behaviour studies have shown this.

iainwales I noticed the same and was wondering !!!!

One watch for driving on the left, one for driving on the right.

lonestranger 😂😂😂 true

One watch tells the summer time and the other winter time.

Apple watches are a waste of time and money. Fashion crap. Get an Omega FFS

I think they would stick one side because it would confuse pedestrians and cyclists

Also having the RHD position allows most manufacturers to conveniently install a Foot Rest for your left foot which operates the clutch because it is in the center of the vehicle where there is more space for it. On LHD cars it's against the outer kick-panel which is more restrictive.

Our passengers just exit on the left,which is curbside to us same as the right is curbside to you,no difference at all,also we tend to put traffic lights both sides of the road here,did Hubel and Wiesel not think of that lol.A classic case this of no right or wrong answer...simply different.

@tweeny55 but in the UK we don't have curbs 😆 curb/kerb weak joke 🤣

April fools day? 😅😅😅

Also left hand on the gears, left foot on the clutch....

Hong Kong drives on the left with right hand drive vehicles.

"Not just the Brits. Australia, NZ, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Japan." "Hong Kong" So thats the Brits, the Brits, the Brits, the Brits, the Brits, the Brits, a country bordering the Brits, the Brits, the Brits and the Japanese.

Ireland also

They said it in the video.

Alien OrSutin guess I'm stupid, i thought the went to NL with their disco to drive a car here (Donkervoort, Spyker, burton etc.)

Neil Dahlgaard-Sigsworth Oops! I just said that about Napoleon. Well, 2 weeks after.

Shazley Sahib during the colonial days, it was established that you would drive on the left in Myanmar. After independence, they decided to shift to driving on the right to distance themselves from their colonial past

Yeah, but Brits and Americans both use miles, inches, pounds etc., while driving on different sides. So I guess that argument doesn't work here. :) Only we Europeans, using the superior Metric system and driving on the right side, got it all right :D

Britain uses metric predominantly and generally only uses imperial for mileage and measuring peoples heights but are equally at home using both systems for everything so who really is superior?

+tsu 800 The superior way of doing anything in life is to do it the most efficient way. Using multiple non coherent units to express length and weight is LESS efficient than using one system that is coherent throughout. The Metric system IS that coherent system. Therefor using it instead of using multiple units that don't directly relate is more efficient and therefore superior.

+tsu 800 or another example. If you can write a computer program in 1000 lines of code that achieves the same result as a different program that uses 10.000 lines of code to do it, than the the program with 1000 lines is superior. Superior doesn't equal more complex, but equals more efficient.

you forgot to mention Indonesia, mate..

You missed Mauritius

I am not sure about the claim that 65% drive on the left side of the road. China drives on the right, so does all of continental North America and Europe.

Ian you missed india with its massive population

Africa seems to be getting overlooked, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Uganda, Swaziland, Lesotho plus the others mentioned above and I understand Rwanda are advanced in plans to switch to driving on the left also as cheaper to import RHD cars as most imports into East Africa come from Japan so would make sense, and of course another two fingers up to the French as an additional benefit!

Once the computer driven cars take over, it wont matter....

But in any given location there has to be a 'correct' side, you can't leave it up to what works for individual drivers as there would be a lot of head-on crashes.

Here's a true fact: only America and two other countries use imperial solely. Britain uses imperial for most things apart from mileage and measuring a persons height but is equally at home using both systems!

I'm sure it was on Juncker's agenda along with getting rid of daylight savings time. The man really knew how to prioritize.

Freerk de Ruiter been wondering about this for quite sometime too actually. Always thought that it was because most people r right handed, so it kinda makes more sense to put the most use stalk on the right side of the steering. U know, more convenient to flick it whilst keeping our hands on the steering wheel. That has always been my theory anyways, never knew if its correct or not.

I think it's related to manual cars, where you might leave your gear-changing hand on the gear stick and your other hand on the wheel. So if you want to indicate, you can still do so without having to take your gear stick hand off the gear stick and bring it back up to the wheel to indicate. It would work for Japanese cars, being RHD, your right hand is on the wheel and you can indicate without taking your left hand off the gearstick. It should mean that all RHD cars have that and all LHD cars have it the other way around, but maybe they just never had that idea.

It's due to the local preference for RHS or LHS drive and manufacturers cannot be bothered mirroring production for indicator stalks for overseas markets

The automotive industry these days is all about cost-cutting! Why produce two versions of a steering column when one will do fine. So now most cars are engineered for LHD and ‘modified’ where possible for RHD markets. Look at Land Rover, an entrenched British manufacturer who builds their RHD vehicles with indicator stalks on the left side of the steering column i.e for LHD markets. The biggest global market is LHD and the Americans would never accept an indicator stalk on the right side so we RHD countries are the bunnies. Curious, the Japanese manufactures still continue to have true LHD & RHD Versions of their cars.

I am from Canada, Japanese cars here have the turn signal lever on the left so you don't use your shifting hand to indicate. Cars here all have the indicator lever on the left, actually - it may be a legal requirement in Canada / USA. The only one I can think of that didn't was a 1968 Austin 1100 our family used to own; in those days things were less regulated. When I was in Malaysia, I found that in Right-hand drive (JDM) versions, Japanese makers moved the indicator to the right side of the column, so you once again you aren't using your shifting hand to indicate. A buddy in Malaysia had a Saab, on that car it seemed that they just moved the steering column to the other side of the car from where it is in European models - the turn signals were on the left, same side as the gear change. What bothered me about driving in Malaysia was having to push away for 1st and 2nd gear, rather than pulling towards myself, as you do in LHD cars. The shifting pattern and springing of the shifter are the same for RHD and LHD, but pulling towards you is a more natural action than pushing away. The other problem with some RHD cars is having enough space for the clutch pedal to move without hitting the transmission tunnel (especially in a rear- drive car). Accelerator pedals generally don't need as much movement as a clutch, so are easier to fit against the trans tunnel. Driving on the left in Malaysia always felt slightly weird, even after 9 months, but that was after 10 years driving on the Right in Canada. There are quite a few JDM RHD cars showing up in Canada these days, but I'll never buy one, it just doesn't feel right.