[alfa] Driving on the wrong side of the road?

["John Fielding" <johnf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I see the perennial thread has resurfaced.

For a little edification take the trouble to find a book covering the history of the motor
car/automobile and look at the pictures of the early French cars, typically the Renault
brothers.  You will notice that the drivers are seated on the right hand side of the cars
and the cars drove on the left!  This changed around the early 1920's when France adopted
a new system where the cars then drove on the opposite side of the road.  Germany also
used a "driver on the right" system for many years, including the second world war, look
at pictures of the German staff cars for proof.

Countries such as Japan, South Africa and Australia drive on the left hand side of the
road and the vehicles are known as "right hand drive". Other countries chose to swap to
the "left hand drive" system, notably Sweden changed over from one to the other overnight,
in the 1970's literally, sounds a bit sinister?

Incidentally you will need to look up the origin of the word sinister to see the
connection!  (A clue - it is originally formed from a French word or expression).

American vehicles also used a "right hand drive" system until who knows when, again a
picture of the early American cars will reveal this.  So why did America, France and many
other countries choose to break from tradition?

Here the guvament has banned the importation of new  left hand drive vehicles, except for
special cases such as the tow trucks that pull the aircraft's around at airports, or
construction vehicles etc.  Someone pointed out to some twerp in the civil service that
the wording of the new bill excluded the importation of aircraft tow vehicles and as no
company makes them here it was a bit of a problem!

On many European based cars the swapping between left and right hand drive is simple, get
the correct steering rack and the pedal box and it fits right in.  On many the brake shaft
runs under the windscreen bulkhead (between the pedal box and the brake booster) and the
booster sits on the left of the car.  So for right hand drive cars the shaft is used, for
left hand drive cars the shaft is removed and the pedal box bolts up to the firewall and
connects to the brake and clutch MC's.

my 2c worth

John
Durban
South Africa
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided