AAA Advice: Stay Safe While Driving on the Left Side of the Road

TFD – Discover expert tips from AAA for safe driving on the left side of the road, ensuring a smooth and secure journey, whether you’re traveling internationally or exploring rural areas.

To see a man about a wagon, I took a drive out into the rural Amish area of Pennsylvania. I was trying to get the answer to a query I’ve had since going on a work trip to England in 2015.

When I used to drive a Mini Cooper very cautiously across London, I used to wonder why I was driving on the “wrong” side of the road. My home country, the United States, was once made up of several former British colonies. We are roughly speaking the same language. But occasionally, we drive on the wrong side of the road, which can be dangerous.

Of course, the UK isn’t the only nation that approaches things in a different manner. It turns out that driving to the left is required in roughly 30% of countries worldwide, whereas driving to the right is required in about 70% of them. There is a twist to how it came to be that way.

Napoleon was a major player in Europe. Henry Ford is frequently given credit in the US, however that is untrue. It has a far longer history than Ford. Not only does right-hand traffic predate automobiles, but it also predates the founding of the United States.

That’s how, just a few days after I test-driven a Tesla Cybertruck, its contemporary electric descendent, I found myself looking at a wagon in a former tobacco drying barn in Conestoga, Pennsylvania. I met John Stehman, whose family has been cultivating property here since 1743. As I discovered via studying the history of roads and driving, he is the president of the Conestoga Area Historical Society. The Conestoga wagon played a crucial role in this entire tale.

Trains in wagons

These large wagons, which carried pioneers’ belongings from the east to the frontier, earned their lofty, arched cloth roofs and became symbols of America’s westward development. However, western Pennsylvania was the farthest frontier in the early 1700s.

Local carpenters and blacksmiths created Conestoga wagons to transport commodities to Philadelphia marketplaces, including as farm produce and goods bartered from Native Americans. One of the largest cities in the colonies at the time was Philadelphia. A “lazy board” that slid out of the side of the wagon allowed the wagon driver to seat or ride one of the horses. But he walked beside the horses, tugging ropes and levers when more active management was required.

According to Stehman, “He would give the verbal command, ‘Gee,’ ‘Haul,’ or whatever, and they would hear that.” “He might also pull on this [jerk line made of leather] once or twice.”

I visualized myself leading a group of horses pulling this blue-painted wagon down a long, dusty trail. Most people are right-handed, including me. Conestoga wagons had the controls on the left side, near the wagon driver’s right hand, for just that reason. This indicated that the wagon was to the right and the driver was moving toward the center of the road.

Eventually, trade and traffic between Philadelphia and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, increased to the point where the nation’s first major highway was built. In 1795, the Pennsylvania and Lancaster Turnpike Road was inaugurated. According to M.G. Lay’s book “Ways of the World,” one of the charter’s requirements was that all traffic remain to the right, following the path taken by the Conestoga wagons.

The first state to enforce the traffic remain to the right on all roads and highways was New York in 1804.

Because Ford Motor Company placed the steering wheel on the left side of their wildly successful Model T in 1908, some people attribute Henry Ford’s decision to bring about the standardization of right-side driving in the United States. In actuality, though, Ford was merely reacting to long-established driving patterns that had been largely formed beforehand.

The truly strange thing is that, with the exception of Britain, the majority of the rest of Europe drives on the right, just like Americans.

Napoleon’s European advance

How come the outliers from Britain are even on the same continent? Give the French credit or blame.

Driving on the right was mandated by the French revolutionary government, led by Maximilien Robespierre, who is most remembered for spearheading the “Reign of Terror” in the late 18th century that resulted in thousands of people being executed by hanging.

Due to a long-standing cultural tradition, people riding horses and carriages were only allowed on the left side of the road. Stated differently, the affluent social groups. Poorer people, or pedestrians, stayed to the right. In addition to improving traffic flow, forcing everyone to drive on the same side of the road was a step toward eliminating these snobbish class divisions.

The upper classes probably went along with it because, back then, being associated with the nobility was considered very risky in addition to being out of style. (See the section on guillotines above.)

Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces are claimed to have marched over Europe, spreading the French policy. Seeing a map of the Napoleonic empire in 1812 provides some proof for this.

There is one country that Napoleon did not have as an ally or subject. That would be Sweden. Until one unusually calm day in 1967, when drivers there moved to the right, Swedenns drove on the left.

Britain genuinely turned away from France.

According to historian Lay, it was related to the various kinds of transportation that were employed. In Britain, there were more individual horse riders and tiny carriages than industrial-sized vehicles. To keep their right hands toward approaching traffic for greetings and, if necessary, fighting, horse riders tended to stay to the left.

driving too recklessly

Regardless of the cause, swapping sides can occasionally have catastrophic effects and result in accidents.

The chief of driver education at AAA, William Van Tassel, advises drivers to pay closer attention when driving on the other side. Turn off the radio, to start with.

“I believe you can have a conversation with yourself while you’re going there. That kind of makes you have to pay attention to driving,” he remarked. All right, far right or tight left. Check for traffic from the right rather than the left. Whatever it is, let it be effective.

Rental agents at Avis Budget Group, which lends out a lot of cars to Americans traveling in the UK, make sure to remind clients to drive on the left. They also take other actions.

“Moreover, we have ‘Drive on the left’ stickers on all of our cars in the UK, and we give out Drive on the left wristbands in prominent places, which we advise our customers to always wear on the left wrist as a reminder of which side of the road to drive,” an Avis Budget statement read.

Van Tassel of AAA advises bringing a passenger as an extra set of eyes; this worked well for me while I was driving there, despite the fact that I occasionally scared her.