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The automobile has been commonplace for more than a century. Despite that fact, the world still can’t agree on one of the most basic principles of operating a car: which side of the road to drive on. This lasting schism has cost automakers billions in redundant development costs and makes the simple act of owning vintage cars produced overseas challenging for owners. How did we get here—and would you believe that it’s at least partially due to America’s independence? The Drive‘s Editor-in-Chief Kyle Cheromcha explains.
Right-side traffic is by far the predominant global configuration; nearly 150 countries—about 70%—have come down on the right side of automotive history. The left side comprises about 60 countries. Sounds like a decisive enough win, right? Except that several of those countries are highly populated, including India and Indonesia. Others are also highly influential, especially in the automotive industry. Great Britain, Japan, and Australia all famously drive on the left side, and all of them had an outsized influence on the development of the car.
And speaking of influence and Great Britain, the current situation can largely be explained by the former reach of England’s empire. India, Australia, and many countries in Africa that drive on the left side are former British colonies. British influence even swayed the Dutch in South Africa to betray their homeland by adopting left-side driving. Japan was also heavily influenced by early industrial-era relations with the U.K., including guidance from U.K. moguls who helped build their now-world-beating railway infrastructure.
But there are plenty of other former British colonies among the right-side driving nations of the world—including the U.S. and Canada. So, apart from our open defiance of all things old-world, why did America ultimately align itself against the British? As usual, at least part of the credit goes to France.
If you go back to the days of horse-drawn carts and lance-wielding nobility, French courtesy dictated that slower “traffic” on common roads stay to the right. This meant people on foot—peasants, in other words. Those proceeding more quickly were given the right-of-way to pass on the left. Lane discipline by royal decree? Not such a bad idea, right?
But unfortunately for expressway drivers everywhere, that notion didn’t last. When the French Revolution turned nobility into a liability, its well-to-do citizens began to disperse themselves amongst the poor, traveling on the right to better avoid being targeted by the masses.
Ever deliberately drive as far to the right as possible in a conspicuously fast car to avoid the long arm (and radar) of the law? Same energy.
But in the 1750s, France wrote the keep-right courtesy into law. And if that were all there was to it, this whole explainer wouldn’t be necessary. So, why didn’t this take off worldwide? For that, we need to swing back over to the British—and go back in time another 450 years to Pope Boniface.
In 1300, Boniface decided that Christianity would forget the depressing realities of daily life if they got up off their dirt floors and logged a few steps, so he declared the first Christian holy year—or Jubilee—and assured the devout that they’d be rewarded for making the long pilgrimage to Rome to visit St. Peter and St. Paul’s Basilicas 15 times. Apiece. If you were local, that number was 30.
Despite the plagues and wars that had greatly reduced Europe’s population in the 1200s, this still put a whole bunch of people on Europe’s rudimentary roads, and that traffic prompted its own decree: foot traffic, keep left. Christians returning to England (which existed more or less in the same form it does today) brought that habit back with them. And it wasn’t until people started leaving these home countries en masse during Europe’s colonial era that defiance of that trend would emerge.
That’s right. We’re talkin’ about America, baby.
Here in the States, “smoldering opposition” to old-world customs played a large role in determining our rules of the road, but practical convenience was the primary driver (pun somewhat intended). This was largely due to the Conestoga wagon, which didn’t have the driver’s seat in front. Instead, it was operated from a board that jutted out from the left side of the wagon. Naturally, when two wagons encountered each other head-on, they’d both move to their right so that the drivers could maintain visibility and control as they passed each other.
The practice stuck, and as U.S. highways developed, states went on to make “keep right” the law of the land. The rest is history.
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Byron is an editor at The Drive with a keen eye for infrastructure, sales and regulatory stories.
