John Rowland wrote:

Anyway, Queen Square is all clockwise except for the southeast corner, which
is two way... now *that's* confusing.

Russell Square now has a Northbound bus lane on the East side, so that
that side is 2-way. However, if I remember correctly, there is a
physical barrier (kerbstones or similar) between the two lanes.

--
John Ray

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
"Richard J." wrote in message
news
Martin Underwood wrote:
"Niklas Karlsson" wrote in message
...

Ever noticed those white oval plates with GB on them? Ever thought how
their owners managed to drive in LHD countries? The idea that you would
have to scrap all RHD cars if we changed the rule of the road is absurd.
Yes, there are some problems, and overtaking on narrow
single-carriageway roads without a passenger to help you is nasty , but
I've never had a problem on a motorway apart from paying at the péage
where the kiosk is on the British nearside.

If I had to drive in mainland Europe, I'd always hire a car locally and
wouldn't contemplate taking my own RHD car over there - especially if I
was
on my own and didn't have a passenger in the front seat who could check
the
door mirror for overtaking traffic as I would if I was driving an LHD car.
Having to take my eyes off the road ahead while I checked and checked
again
in the opposite mirror (or even over my left shoulder, peering between the
door pillars) is just too dangerous. I know plenty of people do it, but
not
me.

RHD cars would effectively be priced out of the market, firstly because
their resale value would be much less than for an equivalent LHD car, and
secondly because the insurance would be so much greater... because
insurance
companies perceive "wrong-sided" cars to be a much greater risk. OK, so
the
problem would gradually decline as old RHD cars were replaced with new LHD
cars, but it would take a long time. Realistically, you'd need to combine
the changeover of cars and roads: without a change of cars, there'd be no
incentive to change the roads as there'd be resistance from people like
me!

If we'd done it several decades ago, it would have been feasible, but
nowadays it's not a realistic option. What a shame that The World didn't
agree right from the outset of the motor car to drive on the same side of
the road - but there were issues of national pride at stake, especially
Napolean's policy of "if everyone else does it one way, we in France will
do
it the other way" (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist). It's always
intrigued me that America chose to drive on the right, given the large
number of British people who settled there. No doubt the number of
immigrants from other European countries swayed the argument.

Which countries still drive on the left?

- UK/Ireland, obviously
- Channel Islands
- Australia
- Malta
- Gibraltar? Or does that drive on the left like Spain?
- Japan (I wonder why)

What about former British colonies like India? I *think* they still drive
on
the left.

Anywhere else?



In The Bahamas you drive on the left - in a LHD car!

Driving on the left comes from Britain but almost all of the cars come from
the US (at the closest The Bahamas are only 60 miles off the Florida coast).
Buses / coaches / trucks however come from Japan and so are RHD.

So being in a nice modern cab (LHD) was a *lot* more scary than travelling
in an old 'pack as many people in as possible and drive as fast as possible'
but RHD mini-bus.

--
regards

Stephen

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 22:51:49 +0100, "tim"
wrote:

It is still common for a side road to have priority over the main road
though.

This in itself isn't unknown in British towns. It's normally achieved
by way of a mini roundabout.

In other words, with very clear advance warning signs and road markings to
give the driver on the major road time to slow down to a realistic speed to
be able to stop if a car *does* approach from the right.

"peter" wrote in message
...

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
"Richard J." wrote in message
k...
Mrs Redboots wrote:
Niklas Karlsson wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 9 Jan 2005:

That's because the rule was changed some years ago. Before then
"priorité à droite" used to apply to roundabouts, giving joining traffic
the priority.

In the same way that they used "priorité à droite" to give priority to a
minor road that joined a major road, forcing traffic travelling at high
speed to brake to let a slow-moving tractor pull out in front. I wonder
what
the French road safety rule-makers were smoking when they came up with
that
rule!

I believe in New Zealand (or maybe Australia) you have to give way to
oncoming traffic that it indicating to turn right (ie your left) across
your path into a side road.

Not here.

Peter
Sydney

Must be NZ then. I knew it was either Oz or NZ.

"tim" wrote in message
...

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
"Richard J." wrote in message
news
Martin Underwood wrote:
"Niklas Karlsson" wrote in message
...

Ever noticed those white oval plates with GB on them? Ever thought how
their owners managed to drive in LHD countries? The idea that you would
have to scrap all RHD cars if we changed the rule of the road is absurd.
Yes, there are some problems, and overtaking on narrow
single-carriageway roads without a passenger to help you is nasty , but
I've never had a problem on a motorway apart from paying at the péage
where the kiosk is on the British nearside.

If I had to drive in mainland Europe, I'd always hire a car locally and
wouldn't contemplate taking my own RHD car over there

Having done both, I find that sitting on the wrong side
of the car is far harder to get used to than positioning
myself on the wrong side of the road.

With my RHD car I just have to accept that I can't overtake
on single carriageway roads, but fortunately most journeys
nowadays are on motorways.

Even on a motorway you'd have to take your eyes off the road ahead and look
a long way off-axis to see the nearside (left-hand) mirror. To be really
sure, an over-the-shoulder check is probably advisable. This requires you to
anticipate the need to overtake further in advance to allow a bit of extra
distance from the car in front yo cover the time when you're not looking
straight ahead.

With a LHD car I still position myself on the right half of the
carriageway and end up with the bulk of the car: in the kerb,
scraping a wall or occupying both lanes of a dual carriageway

I found when I drove in America that driving on the other side of the road
came a lot more easily than I was expecting: I simply reversed everything in
my brain.

The main difficulties came with adapting to things that weren't just a
lateral inversion but were differences between US and UK signing and road
marking:

- lack of amber light to warn that traffic lights were about to turn green

- appalling direction signing on non-highway (ie single-carriageway roads):
maybe I'm too used to the British standard of signposting where at almost
every junction the places and distances that can be reached in each
direction are shown, so you don't have to look out for small
white-on-pale-green road-name signs

- lack of a stop or give-way line across the road where my minor road meets
a major road; this was especially a problem where the minor road met the
major road on a bend: judging where to aim to stop was difficult

- coupled with the previous problem, pedestrian crossings consist of two
very prominent white lines across the road, between which the pedestrians
walk: where a crossing was close to a junction, I tended to stop at the
crossing (even when there were no pedestrians) thinking it was the junction
stop line

- four-way stop junctions: any junction which depends on the time (order) at
which cars arrived (instead of their relative position on the road) to
determine who has priority is pretty stupid because it's open to two people
having different ideas as to who has priority

- "disappearing lanes" on highways/freeways: if you're in the right-most
lane on the approach to a junction, you need to hop out into the next lane
or you'll often find yourself being directed off at the junction

- remembering that US speed limits are generally some 10 to 20 mph slower
than British ones would be for the same type of road

- not being afraid to overtake a car on the "wrong" side because he's decide
to travel slowly in a lane that's close to the central reservation


It was fun to watch Americans try to negotiate the few roundabouts
("rotaries", "traffic circles") that I encountered: they were bewildered
whereas I just said to myself "give way to traffic on my left on the
roundabout and think of the mirror image". The roundabout as you go onto
Cape Cod sticks in my mind! I got several funny looks from drivers who were
in the right-hand lane and indicating right when I overtook them on the
roundabout because I was in the left lane going straight ahead...


Positioning on the road was a problem on country lanes where there was no
kerb stone: occasionally I found that I'd drifted slightly onto the verge.

One thing I liked about US driving (certainly in rural Massachussets) was
the courtesy of other drivers, both to car drivers and to pedestrians: there
was more tendency to drivers on major roads to let ones on minor roads pull
out, and several times when I was on foot I had drivers stop to let me cross
the road even though I'd only stopped to sightsee and wasn't actually
planning to cross!

And I liked the idea of temporary speed limits outside schools etc: very
slow during arrival/departure times but realistic at all other times,
whereas we'd probably have a blanket 30 (or even 20) 24 hours a day.

"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

There used to be a silly joke going round to the effect that the
Republic of Ireland (with whom we do, of course, have a land border) was
going to change to left-hand drive, but to make it easier, they would do
it in stages: lorries and buses one month, cars and cycles the next.....
Mind you, given that they measure distances in kilometres and speed in
miles per hour (or is it the other way round?), one does wonder....

Nigeria made the change, and lorries and buses changed first, then cars a
few days later. They did however keep cars off the road for those few
days....
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

"Michael Bell" wrote in message
...

Junction 8 on the M1 was designed "wrong way round"
in Mrs Castle's time to test the idea of designing junctions
so that they could be changed over to right-hand drive,
but the experiment was never repeated.

In what way was it designed the wrong way round? Just wrong gradients and
curvatures?

Anyway, I really think that the world's motor copmpanies should standardise
the side that the indicator stick is on.

Would it be too hard to design cars such that the pedals, steering wheel and
glovebox could be swapped when you drive from one country to another?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Martin Underwood and "Peter" write:
I believe in New Zealand (or maybe Australia) you have to give way to
oncoming traffic that it indicating to turn right (ie your left) across
your path into a side road.

Not here.

Must be NZ then.

The silly NZ rule actually is about traffic converging into a side street.
The car turning left must yield... er, give way... to the one turning right.
--
Mark Brader | "...it's a characteristic ... of organizations that try
Toronto | to anticipate every possible failu they easily
| come to believe that they *have*..." --Henry Spencer

On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 17:36:53 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:
I was told by the guy I was working for that the Irish authorities are
reluctant to change the speed limit signs in case people try to claim that
the signs still indicate mph and therefore that they are allowed to drive at
80 in a zone that had previously carried a 50 mph = 80 km/hr speed limit ;-)

Well, they're doing it now, in 9 days...

http://www.gometric.ie/

The new signs will, at least for now, show "km/h" under the figure.

Richard.

Annabel Smyth:
There used to be a silly joke going round to the effect that the
Republic of Ireland (with whom we do, of course, have a land border) was
going to change to left-hand drive, but to make it easier, they would do
it in stages: lorries and buses one month, cars and cycles the next.....

You know, when I raised this subject, I thought *I* was making a silly
joke. From the amount of reaction, I see now that I was actually
right and this change *does* need to be made.

(Yes, I'm still joking.)

Mind you, given that they measure distances in kilometres and speed in
miles per hour (or is it the other way round?), one does wonder....

Martin Underwood:
I was told by the guy I was working for that the Irish authorities are
reluctant to change the speed limit signs in case people try to claim that
the signs still indicate mph ...

Of course, it would be too much effort for them to look at Canada and
think of putting a "km/h" plate under each sign as it was changed.
--
Mark Brader "Fighting off all of the species which you
Toronto have insulted would be a full-time mission."
"Deja Q", ST:TNG, Richard Danus