Standardized steering wheel location?

[Dave Mellor NJ]

That might be true but they call their independence day "Dominion Day"(July 1)

[Rusty_OToole]

The government has gradually dropped the Dominion of Canada designation, one of many good things they have thrown away for no reason.

The phrase comes from Psalm 72, known as The Reign of the Righteous King. "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth". A good description of a country that extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Saint Lawrence River to the North Pole.

"The Reign of the Righteous King

72Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son.

2 He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. 3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. 4 He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. 5 They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. 6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. 7 In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. 8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. 9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. 10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. 12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. 13 He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. 14 He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight. 15 And he shall live, and to him shall be given [1] of the gold of Sheba: prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised. 16 There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. 17 His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

18 Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. 19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen. 20 The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended."

[Guest bofusmosby]

I never thought I would be learning so much from the original questions I asked. Talk about getting an education! I want to thank everyone who posted on this thread. There are many things that have been posted, that actually never occured to me. To me, anytime I learn something from a question, its a win win situation! If anyone has any more insight to this thread, please make a post. As they say, "you can never learn too much".

Thank you!

[Kim Rowden]

If I might add something about why the Brits drive on the left (with the driver seated on the right)...

A couple of centuries ago when people walked everywhere, a man might be out with a woman, with his sword strapped to his hip. Most men are right-handed so the sword and scabbard would be mounted on his left hip - he would need to reach across his body to draw his sword.

To be able to draw his sword and defend himself efficiently he would need to have a clear space on his right (where his sword would be in use) - this meant that his woman would have to walk on his left (unless she wanted her eye poked out).

You can now see that if two couples were walking towards each other, and there was potential for a dispute, that each man would want to be ready and able to defend himself - so he would want to walk on the right of the woman AND he would want to walk on the left hand side of the path or road.

This led to situation where (whether walking or driving a cart ... or car) one would drive on the left - with the man (or driver) on the 'outside' position and the women on the 'inside'.

As an aside: to this day it applies that men should walk on the outside of the woman (and/or children) while walking down the street - to protect them from errant cars and cyclists, and to be in the gutter rather than to have the woman walk there (this applies no matter which side of the street one is walking on).

Finally, I might add: everyone knows that it's a God-given rule that if you live on an island you HAVE to drive on the left (UK, Ireland, Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc)

I have no idea why you Americans drive on the right.

I think it was Churchill that said “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”... maybe you thought he meant the "right hand side" and not the "proper thing"...

[Restorer32]

And here I always thought that men walked on the right of women so they couldn't see thru the overlap where their blouses buttoned. Learn something new every day! Maybe that's actually why cars were originally right hand drive?

[Rusty_OToole]

Could it be that the more expensive cars pre 1915 were usually chauffeur driven and that it was more convenient for the chauffeur to sit on the right so he could get out and open the door onto the sidewalk for the passengers? Likewise for delivery trucks so the driver could get out on the sidewalk instead of into traffic? And this is the reason the large cars and trucks were the last to change over?

[Guest Oracle]

Australia, Canada, and NZ were all Dominions. Newfoundland was a British colony until Confdederation, and switched to driving on the right.

This was written a few years ago and to acertain extent holds good still:

The argument about which side of the road to drive on has been going on for someth] ing like 2,000 years now, since the Romans decreed that carts should occupy the left of the road when heading for Rome. A few hundred years ago when horse-drawn transport became more sophisticated, it was standard practice for the British and their “colonies” to drive on the left and have the driver of the carriage or cart located on the right, all the better to control the horses with most people being right-handed. Rather like why does a man walk on the outside of the lady? To keep his right sword-arm free, or to collect all the road muck thrown up by horses?

This was to change with Napolean’s desire to do everything different in Continental Europe, and also with George Washington in the infant United States wishing to do the opposite of British colonial practice! However, as you know the US had centre-steered horseless carriages at first, then with the advent of steering wheels, the wheel was placed on the right even though the vehicle may have been driven on the right! British colonies and the Dominions of Canada and Australia and South Africa stuck with British practice, and drove on the left and had right-hand drive steering. Other countries had odd ideas such as Argentina and Italy, where you drove on the right side in town and left side in the country! Eventually, with Henry Ford’s decision to concentrate in 1915 on left-hand drive Model T’s for everywhere, countries began to concentrate on left-hand steering, and by 1925 there was dominance for that practice. By then, Canadian Provinces had gradually switched over to lhd, and that left Newfoundland as the sole market for rhd vehicles in North America, which continued until 1948 when Newfoundland joined the Confederation.

In Europe, the only Continental country which drove on the left was Sweden, and I remember distinctly that at 2 am on the morning of 6 September 1967, the whole country stopped for 2 hours, and they switched the whole system to driving on the right instead. That left:

ENGLAND

WALES

SCOTLAND

NORTHERN IRELAND

EIRE

ISLE OF MAN

JERSEY

GUERNSEY

ALDERNEY

GIBRALTAR

MALTA

CYPRUS

That drove rhd cars. However, something like 25% of countries drive on the left still, including odd islands of the West Indies, where they drive on different sides according to custom!

In addition, Jeeps have always had a market for rhd vehicles for postal services, and that postal market included a few years back a massive order from the Canadian Post Office for Chevrolet walk-thru vans from GM of Canada.

In this country, apart from the constant demand for rhd ambulances, and this specialist demand by the way continues in Australia, there have been airport trucks based on Chevrolet chassis. There is also a demand surprisingly for lhd and dual-control trucks for road-sweeping duties.

NORTH AMERICAN RHD CARS

Rhd vehicles from the US and Canada have fascinated me and other sad individuals for many years now: we tend to swap information and so we have built up a terrific database of rhd conversions.

GM:

BUICK: the last rhd factory Buicks from Flint, Michigan, Plant were probably in 1953. There is no evidence on paper to show but observations seem to confirm. The last Canadian Buicks in rhd form may have been in 1942!

CADILLAC: this is a difficult one because there is no straight answer. Detroit built rhd cars up to around 1948 at least, but then went over to factory conversions for those with the necessary Dollars, and I have evidence of a rhd Cadiallac sold in England in the late Fifties, being a 1953 Model.

CHEVROLET: this one is easy! The last rhd factory Chevrolet cars were the 1964 Model Impalas, built in the Tarrytown, New York Plant. These used the 1961 Model PONTIAC dash adapted to rhd. The last Canadian cars were sourced from either Oshawa or St Therese, Quebec, Plant as 1969 Models using the 1969 lhd dash adapted. The 1961 to 1964 Models used the ’61 Pontiac dash and the ’65 to ’68 cars the ’65 Chevrolet dash. All the latter were Impalas, save for 1967/8 Caprices for South Africa.

In addition, rhd Chevelles were produced in Oshawa Plant from 1963 to 1969. Chevy 11s were also produced in rhd form from 1962 to 1968 as well, except that from June 1967, all Canadian Novas were built in St Louis, Missouri, Plant, and that must have included rhd cars for export and CKD for South Africa, so strictly speaking the last rhd US Chevrolets were 1968 Models.

From 1973 to 1975, Chevrolet had a batch of Monte Carlos converted to rhd for Australia by GM Bus and Coach in Arlington, Texas to compete with the Canadian-sourced Ford LTDs.

Then in 1996, GM started building 1997 Model U-body MPVs at Doraville, Georgia, as CHEVROLET VENTURE/PONTIAC TRANSSPORT/ OLDSMOBILE SILHOUETTE/OPEL SINTRA/VAUXHALL SINTRA and for Europe the Pontiac rebadged as CHEVROLET TRANSSPORT. The Opel Sintra is also built as rhd for Eire, and as a Vauxhall for the UK.

OLDSMOBILE: this one is easy as well: the last rhd factory Olds from Lansing, Michigan Plant were in 1950. That was it, period.

PONTIAC: this one is easy as well: the last factory rhd Pontiacs from Pontiac, Michigan, Plant were 1957 Model Super Chiefs, 4-door Hardtops. The last CANADIAN Pontiacs were as follows: 1961-1964, all used the Chevrolet bodyshell with the ’61 Pontiac Dash, as per Chev, then 1965 to 1968, the rhd Chevrolet ’65 Dash in Parisiennes except for 1967-8 Grandes Parisiennes, for South Africa, then 1969 Model Parisienne 4-door Hardtops, with the ’69 rhd Chevrolet Dash.

In addition, rhd Acadians were produced until 1968 [from June 1967 sourced from St Louis, Missouri] and Beaumonts from 1963 to 1969.

FORD:

The last rhd US Ford was possibly the Model T in 1927 until the Mazda-built Probe in 1990? Built in Flat Rock, Michigan. The next rhd Ford was the Taurus for Australia, 2 years ago.

The last rhd Mercurys were possibly 1953 Models, from Oakville, Ontario.

After 1927, the responsibility for rhd Fords fell on GM of Canada. Thus export factory cars continued until 1968 from Oakville Plant, and then from 1969 to 1973, Ford of Canada exported lhd LTDs to Australia where they converted them to rhd.

In addition, until 1991 Ford imported F-series trucks from Canada, converted to rhd in Australia. There is a move affot to reimport them again I gather.

AMC: Kenosha Plant built rhd “Ramblers” for export right through to 1976, badged as Ramblers in the UK and Australia [assembled by AMI], and the last models were Ambassador sedans.

CHRYSLER: the Canadian Plant stopped assembling rhd cars in 1966, when the emphasis changed to Australian cars exported instead, though South Africa continued on with locally-assembled cars until 1969.

The last rhd US cars were the 1965 to 1969 Plymouth Barracudas, with the slant-six or 283 V-8. The prototype rhd car, #25 was sold in the UK and I have seen it! The next rhd cars were the Neons from about 4 years ago.

[Guest Oracle]

There are still rhd trucks built in Europe for Switzerland, Austria, etc. so that drivers can see the mountain road walls! We used to have dual-control street cleaner trucks but they all seem to be lhd now.

[Guest Svetlana Wiczer]

Stuart

I have also wondered if the way that cars are now (LHD cars on the right side of the road and RHD on the left side of the road), if this could have had anything to do with judging the "center-line" against the on-coming traffic.

If you'd ever driven RHD car on the right side of the road you wouldn't be asking this question. I used to drive Japanese made Ford (Mazda Motor Corporation) in Russia. That's an exact situation where driver loves having a back-seat driver on passenger side. Passing cars on a two lane road was a challenge. Otherwise... It was nothing super special. I really had no problems shifting gears with my left hand.

[Rusty_OToole]

One other thing we should clear up. Ford was not responsible for the change from right to left hand drive. Detroit made Model Ts had the steering on the left, and the only opening door on the right. Often the spare tire was mounted where the driver's door would be, the door being non existent.

But Canadian made Fords had doors on both sides. Reason, cars for export to British Commonwealth countries from Canada went duty free. Detroit made cars paid import duty. So export orders to RHD countries were filled from Canada to avoid the tax.

Ford could have made RHD or LHD but went with the prevailing fashion. He may have been one of the first to adopt this practice but was not the only one.

[LI_BENTLEY]

Ford changed sides so the front seat passengers could enter and alight from the side of the road, the driver had to slide over the passenger seat to do this. Some manufactures' made both RHD and LHD at the same time ie, White. Why did some European manufactures' produce RHD cars into the 1930S ? Why are some race cars RHD ? In the USA most manufactures copied the wagon seating then changed over, the Brits did the same but did not change, go figure. Driving a RHD car in the USA is not a problem at all, in fact is pleasent as you can follow the right side line easy.