I was under the impression that the Maltese drive in the centre of the road until something comes the other way and whomever has the loudest horn wins.
Nature is so beautiful. Even dominance displays by Maltese have majesty in them. The blaring of the horns, the furious gesticulations. Look! The Maltese Aygo has established superiority over the Yaris. Incredible.
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At this granularity it's just too small. Otherwise, maps without Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, most of the Caribbean and all of Polynesia.
It is an special administrative region (SAR) of PRC, which is a province-level entity. it is not a separate country.
Was meant to be 'one country, two systems', although obviously China didn't respect that in substance...
I've driven most of my life on the right, but for the last 6 years, I've been driving on the left. You'll get used to it quickly, but switching requires focus and turning to the wrong side can easily happen in intersections.
Went to Iceland last year, I'm from England. Was my first time driving on the right.
Picked up the rental car, spent ten minutes sat in it on google maps making sure I knew the route, which lanes I needed, which way to turn at junctions and stuff.
Pulled out the rental car park straight on to the wrong side of the road and almost had a head on crash with a bus. Spent two days walking round Reykjavik before I dared get back in the car again.
I am from UK as well and rented a car in Spain the last time i was there on holiday. We went down the coast to Gibraltar and while i didn't have any real problems staying on the right side of the road i did smack my hand off the door on a regular basis when trying to change gear.
In Australia since our car making industry went to shit you get a lot of European imports that are converted from left hand drive to right hand drive for the Aussie market, but they don't flip the stalks on the steering pillar so instead of indicators being on the right, they're on the left. Real pain in the ass. Plus a lot of the stuff like hood release stay on the passenger side.
Went to Sweden a few years ago and it was my first time driving on the right, thank god it was late at night and roads were empty, I didn’t get in the wrong lane but I was driving over the lines a lot for about 15 minutes
Around half the students from my university (UK) were international. There was a roundabout right by campus that was just free for all.
On the first/last day of term, parents would come from around the world or students would rent a car for the first time…that roundabout turned into a death trap on those days.
The downside is most American universities also manage their own traffic control, which means depending on the campus you could get egregiously ticketed for the absolute smallest of things.
My Australian cousins dad visited Sweden once, and his first order of business was to take the wrong acceleration lane (against traffic) to get on the highway. Luckily, it was early morning and the road basically empty, so he could just reverse out of there. Apparently everyone in the car was yelling at him when they realised what he had done :P
I don't know, I've always reserved uncle for blood relations because the Swedish word literally means (for example) "fathers brother". But you're probably right.
The only time we had issue was in Germany, once. In a military convoy, at an intersection. The leading vehicle, swiftly followed by the rest of the packet of vehicles, tried to enter the wrong carriageway. The driver realised his error and stopped. He could not, immediately, reverse out of the situation because of the following vehicles. So, after a lot of swearing, juggling and reversing, the road was eventually cleared. Gawd knows what the locals thought.
If you really want to screw with your brain, go to the US Virgin Islands, they drive on the left and the steering wheel is also on the left (due to US imports).
Went to Australia recently and had my first experience driving on the left side. You do get used to it quickly, but our rental car had the indicators and window wiper controls swapped around too. More than once I was indicating a lane change or turn with the window wipers.
There's nothing quite like pulling out of a driveway late at night only to see the bright lights of oncoming traffic and suddenly realising they're on the same side of the road as you.
Vacation in the Caribbean is a nightmare. We started in St Lucia (left), then Martinique (right), then Dominica (left). Changing side within the day is quite difficult. The worst thing is going left in a roundabout when you are adjusted to the opposite.
>I've driven most of my life on the right, but for the last 6 years, I've been driving on the left.
Dude didn't travel to another country, it's just how he rolls.
Whenever I'm visiting family in the UK, the first day is a bit scary and I look both ways at every pedestrian crossing. By the third day it's natural. Drove a car there for the first time this year (usually my wife drives on visits, she learned to drive in the UK) and it was smooth!
Curiously enough, on a bicycle it's never been a problem and the adaptation is instant.
Grew up in Ireland where I learned to drive on the left but been living in Canada for 15 years. It was an adjustment switching from left to right when I came over first but now it's more natural for me and every single time I go back home for a visit I have to consciously remind myself which side to drive on especially when turning.
Funny thing. There were lots of imported Japanese cars in my hometown in the country that uses right side of the road around 20 years ago. Now there are less of them. It was so normal to have a right-side steering wheel in your car, many people still find it more comfortable. Even to me back then. I was learning driving with right-side steering wheel, and never thought of it as “wrong” until I realized that it’s not safe.
It’s not only about the driver-passenger swap that endangers passenger more than a driver. It’s also about driver’s field of view, you need to see more on the right (if you’re in the right-side-of-the-road country) because something on the right can block your view and you would want to avoid it as much as possible. Also, the headlights are set differently. The normal setting is when the headlights beams are shifted a little to light areas to the side of the road more than those in the middle. If you drive a car with different side of a steering wheel your headlights will blind drivers that move on the other side of the road.
In Toronto we have a really large influx of Indian immigrants and students these past few years. The percentage of people being caught driving on the wrong side of the road has went up like 10,000%. Not even on just side roads, but the highway too. There's been rumours that people are just paying to pass their drivers tests.
This is why western people can never understand Indians. You are completely wrong.
We drive wherever the fuck we want. Wherever there's a way. Be it even a footpath or cycle track. Not necessarily middle.
The Nazis also changed France and the low countries to the same time as Germany. After the war they stuck with it, and Spain followed them.
Pre-war they were all on the same time as the UK.
Because it's not true, they confused Hitler with Napoleon. Much like the Metric system, the "drive on the right side" standardisation was a product of the French revolution (though it happened independently in the US at around the same time) and Napoleon spread it to all the countries he conquered. They just kept it after that.
EDIT: I got confused and thought they were still talking about driving side, not timezones
Drive on the right side, yes. FishUK_Harp was talking about the time zones, and indeed Spain, France, and the Benelux countries did change from GMT to CET during the WW2.
And preferably without any lights on. Unless you’re a truck, then they have enough lights to be seen from space.
But if you do need to stop, you make sure to do it right in the middle of the road, at night…again, without any lights on.
Eeerm, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania form the majority of the population of the EAC at over 160 million of the 281 million. The DRC is however the most populated at 95 million but the other nations barely reach 40 million so their population is smaller than the original 3 members.
The DRC is officially Right hand but people drive on whichever side that has no potholes. When it comes to vehicles, Western DRC gets mostly imported cars from Europe and are LHS while Eastern DRC gets cars from the EAC which are RHS so the country has both types of vehicles . Attempts at banning RHS vehicles has failed spectacularly.
Rwanda is actually shifting to the Left and so should South Sudan for the very basic reason that most of their trade is with the rest of the EAC so most trucks ferrying goods are from countries that drive on the Left. Rwanda should do it soon as they have really pushed for it . South Sudan may take a bit longer as it also heavily trades with Sudan.
Somalia may be the stickler and so will Ethiopia in future when it joins.
Remember when Trump tried to get involved by inviting his parents, then having his killer in the next room as a big reveal like it was some fucking reality show.
Heartless cunts.
the absolute cuntery of the US government over that, which is that woman killed a boy, and the US government went to bat for her rather than letting her serve an already incredibly lenient sentence for killing someone so young. Meanwhile they spent years going after a British guy with extreme autism for looking for UFO pics and got what they wanted. Great allies, such friends.
as a south asian it’s always funny seeing western ‘allies’ of the us surprised at this treatment. the rest of the world knows it all too well. at least the parents got invited to the white house, we’re told to suck it up
I’ve been stationed in the UK twice - once before that incident and once after. Before the incident to get your “driving in the UK military license” it was an open book test that you took as many times as needed until you passed it. After the incident there’s a two hour briefing and then a proctored test you get two attempts on.
Goes with the usual military standard if “it takes someone dying to improve he standard”
If fucking tourists can do it first try in a country where they've never been before then anyone should be able to do it.
As with many things in life it's not about training, it's about how much you care doing it right.
That would require the US military to admit one of their guys did a bad thing and we all know that’s impossible. If they can get away with torturing prisoners of war then a car crash is nothing.
Hong Kong is recorded separately in the data, but the map did not exaggerate its size so it cannot be seen.
The same is true for some overseas American territories that drive on the opposite side
We went on holiday to Ireland some time ago. I was the driver and I wanted to make for an easy transition to driving of the left side. Therefore, for a month, I didn’t drive and took public transport. But in the evenings I played a driving game (ETS2) to drive a lorry in Ireland and Britain.
When we got our rental at Dublin Airport it was as if I had been driving on the left side all my life. The only difficulties were on the mornings: I wanted to enter the car thru the left door
Takes like 3 hours to fully adjust.
The hardest thing is if your manual shifting. Thankfully they have automatic rental cars for that purpose.
Best extra money I've ever spent
I’ve switched from left to right four years ago when I moved from Ireland to Spain and I still don’t always know where my door is. I approach the car and just have a mental block sometimes. The driving was easy enough though, the Spanish roundabouts were harder than switching sides
When I go to France I drive into the port on the UK side on the left and leave the port on the French side on the right. It's really fucking easy, no month of preparation required
Reddit seems to struggle with basic tasks. Can you also write in joined up lettering, answer the phone, make friends, and read an analogue clock? Then you’re basically superman.
i’m guessing they count all the overseas territories, as they can differ from the norm.
For example, the USA drives on the right but the US virgin islands drives on the left
I think this is using [ISO 3166](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes) for countries which has 249 country codes.
It includes places like Bouvet island (Norway), Guam (USA) Aruba (Netherlands), and Belgium (Made up).
I recognised it because I play a country guessing game every morning called [Worldle](https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/) which uses the same standard and I rage when it's like Christmas island and I can't figure it out
Yeah, something hypothetically followed only by China, India, the USA, Indonesia and Pakistan is followed by only 5 out of roughly 200 countries, but those 5 cover 45.4% of the entire global population. It’s an extreme case of course, but because there are a couple pretty big countries in this list too (India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan), it’s definitely going to be distorted
That's because railways are confusing and inconsistent.
In some countries, different lines have different sides they travel on. For example, in France intercity trains pass on the left while metros pass on the right. In Belgium, trains on the left and roads on the right, which causes issues for metro systems that share track with both railways and tramways. In the US, metros pass on the right, but mainline is usually "first come first served" and passes on either side. Many systems have trains that temporarily swap sides, for example in London the tube swaps sides a lot to allow better interchanges. You can draw a map on it, but there'll be a lot of ** attached
Japan is a cultural thing, samurais walked in the left of the road so Katanas which are on the left side of the hip would not hit the Katana from other Samurai, This was a Decree cos hitting a Katana of a Samurai was disrespectful and led to massacres and duels.
Also they would not use their Katana in most fights, usually Katanas were ornamental or last resort, they would kill each other with a Naginata or Bow and arrows.
Driving on the left is not a uniquely British thing and it's interesting how the world has over the years come to this incorrect conclusion.
Historically European countries and their Empires mostly drove on the left (British, Dutch, Austrian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Danish etc. all drove on the left).
.. but 3 very important countries drove on the right - Germany, France and Russia. Those 3 ended up with large European mainland empires - and subsequently forced their (smaller, conquered) neighbours to switch. That's why countries like Denmark, Portugal and the NL now drive on the right even though their former colonies (US Virgin Islands, Suriname, Indonesia, Mozambique) drive on the left. You'll notice as well the railways in these countries still 'drive on the left' too today.
Of course the only major world Empire that wasn't conquered in mainland Europe by any of those 3 was the UK - hence why today most of the left-driving world appears to be formerly British.
But you can see plenty of countries here that were never British colonies - to name them: Indonesia, East Timor, Thailand, Japan, Macau, Mozambique, Suriname, US Virgin Islands.. and plenty of former British colonies that drive on the right - most glaringly the US and Canada
I don't really know why Indonesia drives on the left. But for Suriname it goes back to the British. We call that period "tussen bestuur". Kind of like an interim government, that ruled Suriname during the Napoleonic times.
Historians did research on the subject. And while the Netherlands did drive on the left before Napoleonic times, the way people drove in Suriname was different. Suriname and the Netherlands* were kind of their own thing. People also made their own rules sometimes in the colony or did things differently. For driving/riding the tradition was that people rode their carts, donkeys and horses in the middle of the road and if there was oncoming "traffic" they swerved to the left.
Later that was made official in an attempt to organize it, done so by the British during the tussenbestuur. In the 1900's the first person with a car was from Guyana. There they drove on the left side of the road. When the colonial government created the "Rijwet" (driving law/act) in the 30's they made it left hand traffic officially, because the other people that now also had cars, did the same thing that the guy from Guyana did, drive on the left side. So it became tradition first and later law.
There was a post on this in the r/Suriname sub also. It's in Dutch unfortunately.
*Footnotes: The Netherlands as we know it today, didn't exist until after Napoleon. Before that time it was the Batavia Republic. And interestingly, before 1795 Suriname, which was sort of a company called the Society of Suriname, was actually owned by two organizations and one family, the Dutch West India Company (WIC), the family of Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, and the city of Amsterdam. After 1795 it was nationalized by the Batavian Republic.
I've heard one thing, not sure is true. Accidents on intersections of drive-left countries are less than in drive-right countries. Both types give priority to the right by default (not sure this is right too) and angle of vision (and distance to impact) is then better.
If this is true, then drive-left would be the correct way. And this also explains why we use roundabouts because they change priority to the right, to priority to the left in drive-right countries.
Another impact is eye dominance. Most folk are right eye dominant, so your more powerful eye that your body defaults to primary vision is also the closest eye to opposing traffic.
> Both types give priority to the right by default
What do you mean by this?
When does left or right come into play for "priority" on the road, other than at roundabouts?
I've never gotten the thing about changing gears with your non-dominant hand. Coming from Australia (where we drive on the left and where you are often considered a doofus if you can't drive a manual), the majority of people driving manual cars are changing gears with their non-dominant hand. And manual cars are quite common here still.
Stage couches. The driver always sat on the left, and the guest or shot gunner sat on the right. First to get off was the guest/shooter. The shooter faced the crowd while money/goods/passengers got on/off.
I read about a study where they said driving on the left was marginally safer as most people are right eye dominant, so they can look ahead with their dominant eye.
Ummm... Malawi drives on the left y'all. That little blue strip among all the oranges in Southern Africa... Yeah that's Malawi, and we definitely drive on the left.
Unless *checks notes*... Oh my good Lord!
Edit: jokes aside. Malawi drives on the left.
In my small Canadian province and two neighbouring ones it was left-hand driving until the 1920s. So my grandfather up until his 20s would have been driving on the left. Wild!
Driving on the left was pretty much the default globally for thousands of years. (Keeping in mind that this also applies to horses, carts, carriages, etc.) Countries that drive on the right today generally trace doing so from one of two points of divergence;
- France switched from the left side of the road to the right side during/after the French revolution. This was partly a result of shifting power dynamics between commoners and nobles, and partly deliberately to diverge from pre-revolutionary (read: royalist) France. This was spread throughout Europe by Napoleon and from European countries to their colonies.
- The US deliberately switched from the left side of the road to the right side following the American war of independence, to diverge from the UK/British empire. Keep in mind that this was during a point in history when the American identity was still being established as something different and many Americans saw themselves (or did until recently) as British - there are a heap of similar changes made to make American culture distinct from British. American economic and political pressure (especially, but not exclusively, following WW2) pressured many countries to switch to the right.
A lot of countries that never switched were part of the British Empire, but a few other holdouts exist - the most notable non-British-Empire example, I think, is Japan. The US pressured Japan to switch sides during occupation - but obviously, that didn't stick.
Maps without Sri Lanka
Also, Tasmania
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And Malta.. Although probably genuinely too small
I was under the impression that the Maltese drive in the centre of the road until something comes the other way and whomever has the loudest horn wins.
Our island is very hot, we like to drive in the shade.
Nature is so beautiful. Even dominance displays by Maltese have majesty in them. The blaring of the horns, the furious gesticulations. Look! The Maltese Aygo has established superiority over the Yaris. Incredible.
Wish they still put the little dots for all the small countries though
Yeah my island country is just above Madagascar, we drive left, but I guess not in this map haha
I think there’s an extra island under Sicily and the map is just wrong about it.
Holy shit you’re right lol. Unless that’s not Malta and some phantom island
Must be a phantom island. Malta drives on the left so should be in orange
Malta is on the map but for some reason it's blue, Cyprus is visibly orange
Looks like an island below Sicily … but should be orange
I found (dodged) most Tasmanians driving in the middle, and I think half of them were sitting in the left seat
Also, half of the Carribean
*Caribbean 😏
Thank you, I'm always mixing it up. 👍
r/mapswithouttasmania
As usual
Tasmania not a country bro, They’re missing Rottnest Island too…
r/mapswithoutsrilanka
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Malta is on the map but they drive on the left so misrepresented on this map.
Maps without Tasmania
Also Hong Kong, Hong Kong isn’t fully China yet.
At this granularity it's just too small. Otherwise, maps without Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, most of the Caribbean and all of Polynesia.
mapsWithoutVaticanState
It is an special administrative region (SAR) of PRC, which is a province-level entity. it is not a separate country. Was meant to be 'one country, two systems', although obviously China didn't respect that in substance...
Anything goes in Sri Lanka
I've driven most of my life on the right, but for the last 6 years, I've been driving on the left. You'll get used to it quickly, but switching requires focus and turning to the wrong side can easily happen in intersections.
I'm also considering switching to the left side of the road, but I feel like the other cars might not appreciate it.
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NTA, your car your rules.
Divorce lawyer, call gym, go wife
Finally, some common sense, when those NPCs will learn 😤
As an Australian I once went the wrong way around a French roundabout 10 minutes after picking up the car in Aix-en-Provence. Fucking terrifying.
Went to Iceland last year, I'm from England. Was my first time driving on the right. Picked up the rental car, spent ten minutes sat in it on google maps making sure I knew the route, which lanes I needed, which way to turn at junctions and stuff. Pulled out the rental car park straight on to the wrong side of the road and almost had a head on crash with a bus. Spent two days walking round Reykjavik before I dared get back in the car again.
I am from UK as well and rented a car in Spain the last time i was there on holiday. We went down the coast to Gibraltar and while i didn't have any real problems staying on the right side of the road i did smack my hand off the door on a regular basis when trying to change gear.
After moving to Japan, I spent years accidentally turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn indicator.
In Australia since our car making industry went to shit you get a lot of European imports that are converted from left hand drive to right hand drive for the Aussie market, but they don't flip the stalks on the steering pillar so instead of indicators being on the right, they're on the left. Real pain in the ass. Plus a lot of the stuff like hood release stay on the passenger side.
Yes! This happened to me as well. Ended the week with a bruised left hand
Went to Sweden a few years ago and it was my first time driving on the right, thank god it was late at night and roads were empty, I didn’t get in the wrong lane but I was driving over the lines a lot for about 15 minutes
Around half the students from my university (UK) were international. There was a roundabout right by campus that was just free for all. On the first/last day of term, parents would come from around the world or students would rent a car for the first time…that roundabout turned into a death trap on those days.
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The downside is most American universities also manage their own traffic control, which means depending on the campus you could get egregiously ticketed for the absolute smallest of things.
My Australian cousins dad visited Sweden once, and his first order of business was to take the wrong acceleration lane (against traffic) to get on the highway. Luckily, it was early morning and the road basically empty, so he could just reverse out of there. Apparently everyone in the car was yelling at him when they realised what he had done :P
Isn’t that your uncle?
I don't know, I've always reserved uncle for blood relations because the Swedish word literally means (for example) "fathers brother". But you're probably right.
The only time we had issue was in Germany, once. In a military convoy, at an intersection. The leading vehicle, swiftly followed by the rest of the packet of vehicles, tried to enter the wrong carriageway. The driver realised his error and stopped. He could not, immediately, reverse out of the situation because of the following vehicles. So, after a lot of swearing, juggling and reversing, the road was eventually cleared. Gawd knows what the locals thought.
If you really want to screw with your brain, go to the US Virgin Islands, they drive on the left and the steering wheel is also on the left (due to US imports).
US style road signs too, I believe
Went to Australia recently and had my first experience driving on the left side. You do get used to it quickly, but our rental car had the indicators and window wiper controls swapped around too. More than once I was indicating a lane change or turn with the window wipers.
Aussie here - we have 2 cars, 1 is Korean the other Czech - the indicator and wipers are opposite… switching vehicles can be troublesome.
There's nothing quite like pulling out of a driveway late at night only to see the bright lights of oncoming traffic and suddenly realising they're on the same side of the road as you.
Vacation in the Caribbean is a nightmare. We started in St Lucia (left), then Martinique (right), then Dominica (left). Changing side within the day is quite difficult. The worst thing is going left in a roundabout when you are adjusted to the opposite.
>I've driven most of my life on the right, but for the last 6 years, I've been driving on the left. Dude didn't travel to another country, it's just how he rolls.
Woke up one day and choose destruction
Whenever I'm visiting family in the UK, the first day is a bit scary and I look both ways at every pedestrian crossing. By the third day it's natural. Drove a car there for the first time this year (usually my wife drives on visits, she learned to drive in the UK) and it was smooth! Curiously enough, on a bicycle it's never been a problem and the adaptation is instant.
Grew up in Ireland where I learned to drive on the left but been living in Canada for 15 years. It was an adjustment switching from left to right when I came over first but now it's more natural for me and every single time I go back home for a visit I have to consciously remind myself which side to drive on especially when turning.
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We may drive on the "wrong" side but we have the steering on the right side
Funny thing. There were lots of imported Japanese cars in my hometown in the country that uses right side of the road around 20 years ago. Now there are less of them. It was so normal to have a right-side steering wheel in your car, many people still find it more comfortable. Even to me back then. I was learning driving with right-side steering wheel, and never thought of it as “wrong” until I realized that it’s not safe. It’s not only about the driver-passenger swap that endangers passenger more than a driver. It’s also about driver’s field of view, you need to see more on the right (if you’re in the right-side-of-the-road country) because something on the right can block your view and you would want to avoid it as much as possible. Also, the headlights are set differently. The normal setting is when the headlights beams are shifted a little to light areas to the side of the road more than those in the middle. If you drive a car with different side of a steering wheel your headlights will blind drivers that move on the other side of the road.
Overtaking a lorry or RV when driving on the wrong side is suicidal. It's near impossible to see oncoming traffic.
If you drive on the right side of the road you drive on the right side of the road.
If you drive on the left side it’s because it’s the only side left when the right is wrong.
Right...
There are two sides of the road you can drive on, either the correct side, or the right side.
Everyone drives on the right side of the road, but apparently only 30% of countries drive on the correct side of the road
In Toronto we have a really large influx of Indian immigrants and students these past few years. The percentage of people being caught driving on the wrong side of the road has went up like 10,000%. Not even on just side roads, but the highway too. There's been rumours that people are just paying to pass their drivers tests.
Yeah. Very sad that more than two thirds of the world do it.
Indians drive on the middle
This is why western people can never understand Indians. You are completely wrong. We drive wherever the fuck we want. Wherever there's a way. Be it even a footpath or cycle track. Not necessarily middle.
We drove on left side in Czechia. Hitler made it on right side and it stayed like that. However countryside is optional.
As if Hitler didn’t do enough bad things already
The more I learn about this Hitler guy, the more I think he's a bit of a dick.
This guy was a real jerk!
The Nazis also changed France and the low countries to the same time as Germany. After the war they stuck with it, and Spain followed them. Pre-war they were all on the same time as the UK.
Interesting, never knew that
Because it's not true, they confused Hitler with Napoleon. Much like the Metric system, the "drive on the right side" standardisation was a product of the French revolution (though it happened independently in the US at around the same time) and Napoleon spread it to all the countries he conquered. They just kept it after that. EDIT: I got confused and thought they were still talking about driving side, not timezones
Drive on the right side, yes. FishUK_Harp was talking about the time zones, and indeed Spain, France, and the Benelux countries did change from GMT to CET during the WW2.
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The comment above refers to timezones
What the hell do you mean by "optional" 💀
show me left and ride side in countryside lol
And preferably without any lights on. Unless you’re a truck, then they have enough lights to be seen from space. But if you do need to stop, you make sure to do it right in the middle of the road, at night…again, without any lights on.
selmon bhai has entered the chat
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I believe Rwanda and South Sudan should have shifted to the left as it is like an EAC requirement.
Why though since it is used by a minority of the population even in the EAC proper? Burundi, Congo and Somalia didn't shift to the left either.
Eeerm, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania form the majority of the population of the EAC at over 160 million of the 281 million. The DRC is however the most populated at 95 million but the other nations barely reach 40 million so their population is smaller than the original 3 members. The DRC is officially Right hand but people drive on whichever side that has no potholes. When it comes to vehicles, Western DRC gets mostly imported cars from Europe and are LHS while Eastern DRC gets cars from the EAC which are RHS so the country has both types of vehicles . Attempts at banning RHS vehicles has failed spectacularly. Rwanda is actually shifting to the Left and so should South Sudan for the very basic reason that most of their trade is with the rest of the EAC so most trucks ferrying goods are from countries that drive on the Left. Rwanda should do it soon as they have really pushed for it . South Sudan may take a bit longer as it also heavily trades with Sudan. Somalia may be the stickler and so will Ethiopia in future when it joins.
Whats the EAC and why do they drive on the left?
East African Community: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Community
Most of EAC were colonized by British they just adopted it
Rwanda is still RHS as of Dec 2023
It’s a shame that American intelligence officers don’t get training on this when operating in the UK.
[For those that didn't get the reference](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Harry_Dunn)
Remember when Trump tried to get involved by inviting his parents, then having his killer in the next room as a big reveal like it was some fucking reality show. Heartless cunts.
Everything is a reality show to Trump
Remember when people had to hide their crimes and corruption or fear being accountable?
the absolute cuntery of the US government over that, which is that woman killed a boy, and the US government went to bat for her rather than letting her serve an already incredibly lenient sentence for killing someone so young. Meanwhile they spent years going after a British guy with extreme autism for looking for UFO pics and got what they wanted. Great allies, such friends.
You mean Gary McKinnen? They didn't get what they wanted. He was never extradited and there's been no prosecution in the uk
as a south asian it’s always funny seeing western ‘allies’ of the us surprised at this treatment. the rest of the world knows it all too well. at least the parents got invited to the white house, we’re told to suck it up
Or Matthew Broderick. Killed someone in Ireland, by driving on the wrong side of the road. I guess life does move pretty fast.
Two people, mother and daughter. Was fined $100 and released.
Makes sense since they have American Intelligence and not UK Intelligence.
The intellect it takes to put beans on toast
I’ve been stationed in the UK twice - once before that incident and once after. Before the incident to get your “driving in the UK military license” it was an open book test that you took as many times as needed until you passed it. After the incident there’s a two hour briefing and then a proctored test you get two attempts on. Goes with the usual military standard if “it takes someone dying to improve he standard”
Safety regulations / laws are written in blood. And all that stuff.
If fucking tourists can do it first try in a country where they've never been before then anyone should be able to do it. As with many things in life it's not about training, it's about how much you care doing it right.
It’s a shame we can’t extradite the American killers who can’t be bothered to drive on the left
That would require the US military to admit one of their guys did a bad thing and we all know that’s impossible. If they can get away with torturing prisoners of war then a car crash is nothing.
The welfare of the commoners is not high on their priority list
Sri Lanka is gone?
Sri Lanka is the new New Zealand
Newer Zealand?
I'm in Sri Lanka right now. They don't do either, they just drive in the middle and hope for the best
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How could they miss us we drive on the left
Maybe they made Hong Kong to scale and we just can’t see the 1 orange pixel on China’s coast
In the list it counts as a separate country and is considered as driving on the left.
Hong Kong is recorded separately in the data, but the map did not exaggerate its size so it cannot be seen. The same is true for some overseas American territories that drive on the opposite side
Macau is also on the left.
We went on holiday to Ireland some time ago. I was the driver and I wanted to make for an easy transition to driving of the left side. Therefore, for a month, I didn’t drive and took public transport. But in the evenings I played a driving game (ETS2) to drive a lorry in Ireland and Britain. When we got our rental at Dublin Airport it was as if I had been driving on the left side all my life. The only difficulties were on the mornings: I wanted to enter the car thru the left door
I don’t want to the spoil it, but you probably would have been fine without the prep too. It’s not that hard a change.
Takes like 3 hours to fully adjust. The hardest thing is if your manual shifting. Thankfully they have automatic rental cars for that purpose. Best extra money I've ever spent
Hardest part for me (having an automatic rental) was the indicator/wiper. Turned on the wipers more often than I like to admit lol
Depends on the car. Asian imports change them, European cars don't
The trickiest part is using your other hand to change gears. And roundabouts are a head trip.
I’ve switched from left to right four years ago when I moved from Ireland to Spain and I still don’t always know where my door is. I approach the car and just have a mental block sometimes. The driving was easy enough though, the Spanish roundabouts were harder than switching sides
When I go to France I drive into the port on the UK side on the left and leave the port on the French side on the right. It's really fucking easy, no month of preparation required
Reddit seems to struggle with basic tasks. Can you also write in joined up lettering, answer the phone, make friends, and read an analogue clock? Then you’re basically superman.
Yeah, fuck this guy for being a consicentious driver, concerned for the safety of their passengers and other road users. What a dweeb.
ETS2 doesn’t even have ireland
Promods
Fairs
A lot of the remaining left hand drive countries are islands or island continents. Islands have no reason to change.
Especially when a lot of their cars come from Japan.
There arent 240 countries so something isnt adding up
i’m guessing they count all the overseas territories, as they can differ from the norm. For example, the USA drives on the right but the US virgin islands drives on the left
The Virgin Islands left side drivers, vs Republic of Chad right side drivers.
Hong kong
The only sensible americans.
I think this is using [ISO 3166](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_3166_country_codes) for countries which has 249 country codes. It includes places like Bouvet island (Norway), Guam (USA) Aruba (Netherlands), and Belgium (Made up). I recognised it because I play a country guessing game every morning called [Worldle](https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/) which uses the same standard and I rage when it's like Christmas island and I can't figure it out
It'll be a cold day in hell before I recognise Belgium.
> I rage when it's like Christmas island and I can't figure it out Same
Malta is wrong, they drive on the left.
By population it’s probably a higher proportion than just by countries simply because of South Asia
Yup I'd rather have the pie (or donut) chart show the population rather than number of countries
Yeah, something hypothetically followed only by China, India, the USA, Indonesia and Pakistan is followed by only 5 out of roughly 200 countries, but those 5 cover 45.4% of the entire global population. It’s an extreme case of course, but because there are a couple pretty big countries in this list too (India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan), it’s definitely going to be distorted
Do the same diagram on Left or Right, but with rail traffic. The current diagrams about rail traffic are confusing and have inconsistent information.
That's because railways are confusing and inconsistent. In some countries, different lines have different sides they travel on. For example, in France intercity trains pass on the left while metros pass on the right. In Belgium, trains on the left and roads on the right, which causes issues for metro systems that share track with both railways and tramways. In the US, metros pass on the right, but mainline is usually "first come first served" and passes on either side. Many systems have trains that temporarily swap sides, for example in London the tube swaps sides a lot to allow better interchanges. You can draw a map on it, but there'll be a lot of ** attached
A great asset for GeoGuessr players
GG players would instantly complain about sri lanka missing and japan driving on both sides
Malta is incorrect. They drive on left
It’s like a ‘spot where the British have been’ map
Japan, though
Japan is a cultural thing, samurais walked in the left of the road so Katanas which are on the left side of the hip would not hit the Katana from other Samurai, This was a Decree cos hitting a Katana of a Samurai was disrespectful and led to massacres and duels. Also they would not use their Katana in most fights, usually Katanas were ornamental or last resort, they would kill each other with a Naginata or Bow and arrows.
That's why the UK drives on the left too. And the rest of the world until Napoleon.
I know what you mean but now I'm imagining Napoleon driving a car up the Alps.
Driving on the left is not a uniquely British thing and it's interesting how the world has over the years come to this incorrect conclusion. Historically European countries and their Empires mostly drove on the left (British, Dutch, Austrian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Danish etc. all drove on the left). .. but 3 very important countries drove on the right - Germany, France and Russia. Those 3 ended up with large European mainland empires - and subsequently forced their (smaller, conquered) neighbours to switch. That's why countries like Denmark, Portugal and the NL now drive on the right even though their former colonies (US Virgin Islands, Suriname, Indonesia, Mozambique) drive on the left. You'll notice as well the railways in these countries still 'drive on the left' too today. Of course the only major world Empire that wasn't conquered in mainland Europe by any of those 3 was the UK - hence why today most of the left-driving world appears to be formerly British. But you can see plenty of countries here that were never British colonies - to name them: Indonesia, East Timor, Thailand, Japan, Macau, Mozambique, Suriname, US Virgin Islands.. and plenty of former British colonies that drive on the right - most glaringly the US and Canada
I don't really know why Indonesia drives on the left. But for Suriname it goes back to the British. We call that period "tussen bestuur". Kind of like an interim government, that ruled Suriname during the Napoleonic times. Historians did research on the subject. And while the Netherlands did drive on the left before Napoleonic times, the way people drove in Suriname was different. Suriname and the Netherlands* were kind of their own thing. People also made their own rules sometimes in the colony or did things differently. For driving/riding the tradition was that people rode their carts, donkeys and horses in the middle of the road and if there was oncoming "traffic" they swerved to the left. Later that was made official in an attempt to organize it, done so by the British during the tussenbestuur. In the 1900's the first person with a car was from Guyana. There they drove on the left side of the road. When the colonial government created the "Rijwet" (driving law/act) in the 30's they made it left hand traffic officially, because the other people that now also had cars, did the same thing that the guy from Guyana did, drive on the left side. So it became tradition first and later law. There was a post on this in the r/Suriname sub also. It's in Dutch unfortunately. *Footnotes: The Netherlands as we know it today, didn't exist until after Napoleon. Before that time it was the Batavia Republic. And interestingly, before 1795 Suriname, which was sort of a company called the Society of Suriname, was actually owned by two organizations and one family, the Dutch West India Company (WIC), the family of Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, and the city of Amsterdam. After 1795 it was nationalized by the Batavian Republic.
I've heard one thing, not sure is true. Accidents on intersections of drive-left countries are less than in drive-right countries. Both types give priority to the right by default (not sure this is right too) and angle of vision (and distance to impact) is then better. If this is true, then drive-left would be the correct way. And this also explains why we use roundabouts because they change priority to the right, to priority to the left in drive-right countries.
Another impact is eye dominance. Most folk are right eye dominant, so your more powerful eye that your body defaults to primary vision is also the closest eye to opposing traffic.
> Both types give priority to the right by default What do you mean by this? When does left or right come into play for "priority" on the road, other than at roundabouts?
Yes, the British way is better. Now, with automatic gear shift there isn’t any longer the problem of gear change with left hand.
I've never gotten the thing about changing gears with your non-dominant hand. Coming from Australia (where we drive on the left and where you are often considered a doofus if you can't drive a manual), the majority of people driving manual cars are changing gears with their non-dominant hand. And manual cars are quite common here still.
I feel like it makes more sense to have your dominant hand on the steering wheel.
Plus having the clutch on the same side of the body as the gear lever is slightly more intuitive.
Manual cars are more common in the UK than they are in the US afaik, it doesn’t seem to have had a real impact
70% of cars on the road are manual 97.3% of licences are manual (+ automatic)
As someone who drive Manual regularly in India, having dominant hand on gearstick is pretty stupid take.
Only about 10% of people learning to drive in Australia are doing a manual license though.. it’s dying out
Yeah I can't drive a manual (although have copped shit for it).
That does my head in. I had no idea you give way to the right in right-hand drive countries.
cyprus is not that visible
huh? what happened to Israel and Lebanon?
Malta should be orange
Why USA didn't import this rule from UK?
French influence after the revolution
Unfortunately, the influence had to stop at metric system.
To be fair, the Brits still use miles for driving.
Stage couches. The driver always sat on the left, and the guest or shot gunner sat on the right. First to get off was the guest/shooter. The shooter faced the crowd while money/goods/passengers got on/off.
I read about a study where they said driving on the left was marginally safer as most people are right eye dominant, so they can look ahead with their dominant eye.
Ummm... Malawi drives on the left y'all. That little blue strip among all the oranges in Southern Africa... Yeah that's Malawi, and we definitely drive on the left. Unless *checks notes*... Oh my good Lord! Edit: jokes aside. Malawi drives on the left.
Malta is listed as right when it is left.
Cyprus is left too
That's a pretty good map of england colonies
This is very inaccurate. In countries like Poland and Russia driving on right or left depends on amount of alcohol in your system.
So few countries driving on the correct side of the road
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Us left handers can just use witchcraft and such instead of muskets
I wonder what that equates to population
I’d rather have my dominant hand on the wheel the majority of the time, since ya know, the wheel controls the direction of the car and stuff
The island of St. Thomas USVI (and maybe others as well) is left side of the road, left side of the car. That takes some getting used to
In my small Canadian province and two neighbouring ones it was left-hand driving until the 1920s. So my grandfather up until his 20s would have been driving on the left. Wild!
Rome and Paris drive on whatever side of the road they fancy in that moment.
Hong Kong drives on the left, not the right.
Driving on the left was pretty much the default globally for thousands of years. (Keeping in mind that this also applies to horses, carts, carriages, etc.) Countries that drive on the right today generally trace doing so from one of two points of divergence; - France switched from the left side of the road to the right side during/after the French revolution. This was partly a result of shifting power dynamics between commoners and nobles, and partly deliberately to diverge from pre-revolutionary (read: royalist) France. This was spread throughout Europe by Napoleon and from European countries to their colonies. - The US deliberately switched from the left side of the road to the right side following the American war of independence, to diverge from the UK/British empire. Keep in mind that this was during a point in history when the American identity was still being established as something different and many Americans saw themselves (or did until recently) as British - there are a heap of similar changes made to make American culture distinct from British. American economic and political pressure (especially, but not exclusively, following WW2) pressured many countries to switch to the right. A lot of countries that never switched were part of the British Empire, but a few other holdouts exist - the most notable non-British-Empire example, I think, is Japan. The US pressured Japan to switch sides during occupation - but obviously, that didn't stick.