left vs right side of road

[sixf00t4]

ok Ford invetnted the first car right? and it was in america right? i wonder where the driving on different sides of the roads between europe and american start and how and why. when there were horses and buggies, was it the same way? so did americans change the way it was? any sites?

[Gomer]

GOOGLE will some day revolutionize the world

http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache...n&ie=UTF-8</a>

http://www.i18nguy.com/driver-side.html

[MD1032]

I have no idea how it happened, but I don't know if the model-T was actually the first right-sided car.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

See, over in Ireland and such, they drink more, and most people were driving on the wrong side anyways when they were drunk, so they just made that the "Right side"

I'm JJ BTW, I actually recieved an Email recently that had to do with the spacing of train tracks being 4' 8.5" coming from a very long time ago,

As for the side of theroad, it probably does come from horse and buggy days.

[OuTpaTienT]

Actually, it appears that one is an urban legend Wiz.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.htm

I believed it at first too, because my dad has been a railroad guy for over thirty years.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

Still made for an interesting read.

Thanks out, I'll reply back to the person that sent it BTW, if you read that article, it does say That for the most part it had to do with carriages width, so it's not totally wrong, but still not correct.

Since 1 December 1922 there had been a problem for automobile drivers who crossed the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick - on that date New Brunswick had switched to driving on the right-hand side of the road, while Nova Scotia remained with the left-side rule. For four and a half months, drivers crossing the border in both directions had to remember to change to the other side of the road, and even with the relatively low traffic levels of that day there were some near- misses resulting from this conflict."

The switch had an interesting effect on the beef industry: "In Lunenburg County, 1923 is still known as The Year of Free Beef; the price of beef dropped precipitously because oxen which had been trained to keep to the left could not be retrained — oxen are notoriously slow-witted — and many teamsters had to replace their oxen with new ones trained to keep to the right; the displaced oxen were sent to slaughter."

Nice find Gomer, This one I find rather funny for some reason, Ox anyone?

[sixf00t4]

U.S., 1900s [DOT] When inventors began building "automobiles" in the 1890's, they thought of them as motorized wagons. As a result, many early cars had the steering mechanism-a rudder (or tiller), not a wheel-in the center position where the side of the road didn't make any difference. Lay points out that technical innovation created the configuration we are familiar with in the United States:
"However, with the introduction of the steering wheel in 1898, a central location was no longer technically possible. Car makers usually copied existing practice and placed the driver on the curbside. Thus, most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."

By 1915, the Model T had become so popular that the rest of the automakers followed Ford's lead.

North America, 1800s [Adams] The first known keep-right law in the United States was enacted in Pennsylvania in 1792, and in the ensuing years many states and Canadian provinces followed suit. In 1792, Pennsylvania adopted legislation to establish a turnpike from Lancaster to Philadelphia. The charter legislation provided that travel would be on the right hand side of the turnpike. New York, in 1804, became the first State to prescribe right hand travel on all public highways. By the Civil War, right hand travel was followed in every State. Drivers tended to sit on the right so they could ensure their buggy, wagon, or other vehicle didn't run into a roadside ditch.

my home state was the cause in that case!

here is a good explanation... http://www.2pass.co.uk/goodluck.htm dont know why the page is called "goodluck"