arbitrary laws

[adrian_turtle]

I used to think the law of driving on the right side of the road was completely arbitrary. Socially determined, with no particular basis in any level of reality, but of course once it has been determined it becomes very important to abide by it. In a community where most people are right-handed, the choice is NOT arbitrary. When a right-handed driver is startled on a right-driving road (by, for instance, a bird hitting the windshield), their stronger arm tends to pull them off the road. On a left-driving road, that panicky flinch tends to pull them into oncoming traffic.

On my recent visit to London I learned the people there drive on the left side of roads and walk on the right side of sidewalks. I know such conventions don't have to make sense. The increased danger of driving cars on the left is pretty small. If cars and pedestrians both kept to the left, I suspect I would just chalk it up to Foreign Customs Are Different and it wouldn't itch my brain like this.

Comments

[springheel_jack]

They walk so that traffic comes up behind them? Puzzling.

[adrian_turtle]

I was mostly thinking of pedestrian spaces like escalators or train stations or footpaths in parks, where cars don't come up behind them particularly. And on small roads, or places where the sidewalk was blocked by construction or parked cars, pedestrians hugged the curb just as they do here. Whichever curb was nearest.

But out near where Vicki's mom lived, there were some medium-sized streets where cars went north and south (the cars keeping left). There were sidewalks on both sides of the street, with pedestrians going both ways on both sides. I had been thinking of the inconsistency, but you're right that northbound pedestrians on the west side of the road have cars coming up behind them. There was usually a little strip of grass or at least a curb separating sidewalk and road, so traffic wasn't coming directly behind them.