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Choosing Sides

More on Samoa here, while the BBC examines the old on-again off-again issue of the U.K. switching sides.

What if the UK were to follow? Driving on the right would make trips to the European mainland easier, when taking or hiring a car. And cars with steering wheels on the left could be cheaper.

The idea is not as fanciful as it sounds. Although the Department for Transport says it has no plans to change, it did examine such a plan in the late 1960s, two years after Sweden successfully switched to driving on the right.

Its report rejected the idea on grounds of safety and costs. But that was before Britain’s entry into the European Union and the opening of the Channel Tunnel, which for the first time established a land link between Britain and the Continent.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Traffic Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Choosing Sides”

  1. Steve L Says:
    September 10th, 2009 at 1:54 am

    Of course, the channel tunnel is a rail tunnel, you drive onto the train and off again, so even though you don’t leave your car, you dont somehow switch from UK to french driving rules half way along. The tunnel itself is not a valid reason for switching.

  2. HB - Amsterdam Says:
    September 11th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    Let the UK (and the US) switch to the metric system first, or adapt to the Euro. After that the switching to the right will be less painfull…

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Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

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