Posted: 16 March 2018 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | 7
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The side of the car that has the steering wheel is dictated by the side of the road you drive on. You get better spacial awareness for vehicles driving in the opposing direction if the wheel is position closer to that side. So left-sided steering when driving on the right and vice versa.
Historically, it was advantageous to travel on the left (and I'm talking back all the way to mediaeval times). As you point out, most people are right handed. This meant, if you are riding your horse, chariot or carriage on the left of a road, your sword hand is on the side where you might meet a potential adversary.
So, historically, you had people riding on the left. Pedestrians, though, would walk on the right, so as to avoid riders from behind and face oncoming traffic. This created a kind of split between the mounted nobility and the trundling peasants. Switch to revolutionary France, in which peasants are the nouveau kewl and nobody wants to shout about their nobility and everyone starts travelling on the right. Napoleon subsequently ordered his forces to travel on the right and as he began to conquer more and more territories, this convention spread.
The US originally drove on the left, thanks to the British influence, but this went out the window not too long after the War of Indepence. Britain, meanwhile, exported drive-left customs to many territories around the globe, including (you may be surprised to learn) Japan, because the British helped set up the railroads there, and set them up to travel on the left. Canada was all left, apart from Quebec because of the French influence. The influence of their southern neighbours eventually held sway though. BC and the Maritimes switched to the right in the 1920s. Newfoundland kept driving on the left all the way into the 1940s.
As for cars being stick shift in their infancy... in the UK, I'd say 90% of cars are manual (off the top of my head).
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