I believe that we should drive on the right hand side of the road?

Question

the same as the Americans do, but keep the right hand steering wheel. This way the driver is closest to the kerbing, which causes a lot of traffic accidents. Would you agree that this may save lives on Australian roads?

Answer 1

The rationale behind the direction of traffic is that it is much safer to drive with your body as close as possible to oncoming traffic, as it encourages you to move the car away from said traffic. The curb doesn't have any kinetic energy compared to a 3500 lb. vehicle @ 45 mph (72 kph for all of you metric folk).

Answer 2

I have always contemplated this, see the pro-of a right hand side steering wheel are that the drivers are further from oncoming traffic, the con- it's much more difficult to see what is on the oncoming side of the car.

Answer 3

I would have to agree that there would be accidents if this was required.

Answer 4

Well if you would drive on the right side of the road would the steering wheel be on the other side then?  I think they do this so you can judge your distance between yourself and on coming traffic.

Answer 5

In general, it's more important to see the oncoming traffic than to see the kerb.

But you're right in one point - until 1960's Lancia, Italian car maker, produced their cars in RHD versions, the reason was that it's more important to know where the side of the road is while driving a sports car in the Alps (mountains). Similarly, the truck in mountain areas were RHD.

See, I was born in Slovakia, where I learned to drive on the right. But then I moved to Britain and got a RHD car - and spent much of the time driving in ... Europe on the right....

So now I can pretty much drive any car on ony side of the road. But I have to say that I felt most comfortable when driving in Britain on the left side with steering wheel on the right.

Driving an RHD car in Europe was fun, basically, it's OK on motorways/highways but try to overtake a truck on a twisting road - it's something between suicidal and impossible if you don't have a passanger on the front seat with good driving experience.

P.S. A small note to my imperial friends - it's actually km/h not kph, as the abbreviation for kilometer is km, as in kilo-meter, or, one could use kmph:-), no offence, really :-) I had to learn the imperial units....

Answer 6

i think passing another vehicle would be much more dangerous that way

Answer 7

no, because it has been that way for so long that there would be more accidents trying to adjust