Left, or Right Hand Drive

Who invented the driving directions ? Well nobody can say exactly. Before the automobile was invented, horses were common mode of transport. Since most people are right-handed, swordsmen preferred to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to an opponent and their scabbard further from him. Furthermore, a right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse.

About a quarter of the world drives on the left, and the countries that do are mostly old British colonies. Some of these left lane drive countries are:

Australia Bahamas Bangladesh Bermuda
Brunei Cayman Islands Christmas Is Grenada
Hong Kong India Indonesia Ireland Jamaica
Japan Macau Malaysia Maldives
Malta Mauritius New Zealand Pakistan
Papua New Guinea Seychelles Singapore South Africa
Sri Lanka Thailand United Kingdom Zimbabwe

Right Hand Drive

But during the 1700s France and the United States began using wagons pulled by several pairs of horses. These wagons had no driver's seat so the driver sat on the left rear horse, so he could keep his right arm free to lash the team. Therefore he kept to the right side of the road.

Countries with right lane drive system:

Afghanistan Argentina Armenia Austria
Bahrain Belgium Belize Brazil
Bulgaria Cambodia Cameroon Canada
Chile China Costa Rica Croatia
Czech Rep Denmark Ecuador Egypt
Finland France Germany Gibraltar
Greece Guam Hungary Iceland
Iran Iraq Israel Italy
Jordan Korea North Korea South Kuwait
Lebanon Luxembourg Mexico Mongolia
Myanmar Netherlands Nigeria Norway
Panama Philippines Poland Portugal
Puerto Rico Qatar Russian Spain
Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Arab Emirates
USA Uruguay Vietnam

Left Hand Drive

The trend among nations over the years has been toward driving on the right, but Britain has done its best to stave off global pressure.
Left-hand driving was made mandatory in Britain in 1835. An exception is Egypt, which had been conquered by Napoleon before becoming a British dependency.

Although Japan was never part of the British Empire, its traffic also goes to the left. The year 1872 when Japan’s first railway was built with technical aid from the British, it took another half century till in 1924 left-side driving was clearly written in a law.

When the Dutch arrived in Indonesia in 1596, they brought along their habit of driving on the left. Napoleon conquered the Netherlands that the Dutch started driving on the right as did Indonesia. But the brief occupation by the British eventually change the direction again.

After the Second World War, left-driving Sweden, the odd one out in mainland Europe passed a law on the conversion to right-hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, the 3rd of September 1967.


As Michael Jackson once sung, it doesn't matter if you're left or right, just drive safely.