Hey everybody, welcome back to explain like I'm five the podcast where we take the questions you always wanted to ask and talk about Them in a way that's easy to understand really hosts. I'm Tim Hey everyone. I'm Kevin So Kevin this week a few listeners have been writing in and updating us with their upcoming summer travel plans and one interesting topic has come Around these discussions and that is why is traffic on the right side of the road in some countries and on the left-hand side in others Maybe we can start with this simple question, which is more popular left-hand traffic or right-hand traffic Ah excellent topic today. So the answer to that question is that right-hand traffic is more popular It's actually used in 165 countries and territories including countries like the United States, Russia and China with the remaining 75 countries in Territories using left-hand traffic like places like the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand Countries that use left-hand traffic only account for about a quarter of the roads Maybe about a six of the world's land area and about a third of the world's population Now was this always the case and the slit was sort of two-thirds one-third actually no it was in back in 1919 It was probably closer to around 5050 back then a hundred and a hundred four of the world's territories were left-hand traffic and an equal number were right-hand traffic It was between 1919 and 1986 where 34 of the left-hand traffic territories switched to right-hand Why did the 34 countries switch?
Well, you know each one has his own unique story So for example Sweden they switched their entire traffic system from the left side of the road to the right side in a single day in 1967 called Dog and H which was apparently the most logistically complex event in Sweden's entire history The H here stands for a hobo traffic, which is basically the sweet word for right-hand traffic You know the interesting thing here was that in the weeks and months immediately following that change traffic Accidents actually fell dramatically due to the extra caution that people drove it because of this jarring reversal in traffic That is a fascinating thing isn't left-and-right comparison really just a British Empire versus a French Empire historical thing? Well, it kind of sort of looks like it many other countries that adopted left-hand traffic were indeed formerly part of the British Empire But not all so some such as Indonesia, Japan, of Akao, Mozambique, the Paul Thailand and Sweden of course Which is which like we just talked about but as you know as you say much of the right-hand traffic group are countries that were a part of the French colonial Empire So yeah, you can say there is a bit of a historical history The historical alignment with the British and French sounds rather arbitrary though were there other logical explanations as to why right-hand traffic or why left-hand traffic? So there are some theories to that and even some myths that attempt to explain this as we learned in one of our earlier So it's about right-handed and left-handed people about 90% of people are right-handed and there are many explanations about traffic that also reference this So for example, you know horses are traditionally mounted from the left and left from the left with the reins held in the right hand So people walking horses might use something like right-hand traffic like in the United States to kind of keep the animal separated Also in favor of right-hand traffic is the fact that wagon drivers with their horses with their right hand and thus sat on the left-hand side of the wagon Basically, you know as in right-hand traffic. Okay, those all seem to suggest right-hand traffic is the way to go.
Are there practical explanations for why left-hand traffic then? Yeah, you know, that's the problem There's another theory which is that people used to keep their swords in the right hand So as pedestrians always wanted to pass on the left as a left-hand traffic for either safety or self-defense reasons I see okay, and those make sense, but it's hard to say there's a definitive Reason why it should be one or the other. Let's talk about the practicality of the different sides of the road Though it affects a bunch of things like the cars themselves round about and many many others Indeed indeed in left-hand traffic the traffic keeps left and thus the cars usually have the steering wheel on the right side of the car, right? And then roundabout circulate clockwise while right-hand traffic is the opposite of this since traffic keeps right The driver usually sits on the left side of the car basically like we do here in the United States We're all left-hand drive and then roundabout change because now they circulate counterclockwise Something else that adapts to this is the on ramps and off ramps are also on different sides of the roads and thus the fast lane There's also on a different side of the road.
So if you don't pay attention, there's actually many more differences What you start thinking about it? Yeah, that's right now what happens when you drive a car then from a right-hand traffic country into a left-hand traffic country Excellent question. It is a challenge, but there is an interesting solution called the Lotus Bridge Which you should definitely Google image for is between the left-lane driving Macau and the right-lane driving China It allows for traffic to seamlessly switch the side road that you're driving on right at the border You know as you describe all those practical challenges and the Lotus Bridge It does make that switch that Sweden did just in one day all the more remarkable doesn't it? Quite remarkable indeed, you know They had to rework one way streets bus stops had to be constructed on the other side of the street and intersections had to be reshaped to allow traffic to merge It was a huge undertaking and just to add some more detail about that dog and H day on Sunday, September 3rd, 1967 All non-essential traffic was also banned from the roads from about 1 a.m.
6 again And for any vehicles on the roads during that time They had to follow really special rules all vehicles had to come to a complete stop at precisely 4 50 a.m And then carefully change to the right-hand side of the road and then stop again to basically give other times to switch sides The road and avoid things I had on position before being allowed to proceed at 5 o'clock Wow, that was a logistical achievement to get everything coordinated that way So finally would I be right in saying that rail traffic and other forms of traffic also follow either right or left depending on how the roads are set up Also good observation the answer that is not always by what's saying most countries rail traffic generally follows the hand And this of the roads the exceptions here are many of the countries that switched road traffic from formerly left hand to right hand where they did not switch their trains Because that would just be way too expensive another interesting fun fact is both traffic on rivers is effectively always right-hand traffic And that's because boats are traditionally piloted from the starboard side to facilitate that priority to the right Well, that's very interesting. I will look out for that in future Do you learn something new if you did send us an email at ely5thepodcastedgmail.com We love hearing from you especially when you've got topics for us like some listeners had for this week as always Thank you to the community at r slash explainer can five and we will see you all next week