Why do the British drive on the left?

Why are the British so weird? Why do we drive on the left, when (almost) the rest of the world drive on the right?
Find out in today's video!

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[門徒解說聖經]

Enemies coming out from the bush (a rider's left hand side) are more dangerous. I speculate that it was related to chariot driving. Drivers of chariots usually used their right hands to whip horses. They have to sit on the right hand side of their chariots. In order to avoid colliding with chariots coming from the opposite direction. Drivers of chariots drive on the left hand side of the road so they can see the sides of other chariots.

[ojamagreen]

same with the spiral staircases in castles, they're always built clockwise so that the defender had it easier to fight against the intruder
since most people were right-handed intruders had a hard time fighting on the staircase because there wasn't enough space to move their right arm properly

[hadjerkhiati]

Malaysia and Singapur too. On the left side, you are so generous ALY two videos at the same time 😊😊😊 the best thing I did in youtube is to subscribe your channel.

[archdornan]

Three fourths of the world drive on the right side of the road. Brits drive on the wrong side of the road.

[silviomp]

I was wondering about this this week. Creep.
BTW, cool video, cool lesson!
I also drive on the right because I am lefthanded and it's easier to hold my gun and shoot while driving.

[iradja]

Yay!😃 It makes sense! Thank you Aly for clearing this up for me 😉 never took into account the sword thing. Just thought how inconvenient it is to switch transmission with your left hand being right-handed. 😁

[mikhailvatsura]

Cool! Now it seems more logical for me. I like the format of the video, and I'd like to see more short videos like this.

[bcalife]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of your work, but at least as far as remember Napoleon was the one who first changed the side of the road to make more difficult to English to fight with French troops of that epoch.

[joeschmoe]

all of the countries he listed off are former british colonies so that explains the backwards driving in those places as well

[JordanMariev]

And another cool video! Thank you, Papa! You killed it today!

[JimNH]

That also explains why countries like Japan drive on the left side. Napoleon apparently changed it to the right and all the countries that were colonized by other European countries followed it as a standard. Eg. Sweden had left side traffic up to late 1960s.

[vickywen]

you forgot to mention Indonesia!! we drive on the left side too!!

[mave]

You are great! I can' t stop watching you Keep on like that. You are the best english teacher I have ever had; ... on the internet too

[annasemikina]

Never thought about the reason! Thanks, Aly! Now everything makes sense.

[missyc]

Wow nice video, I always wondered about this. In Argentina we drove on the left until 1944, we changed basically due to peer pressure... Everyone else in Latin America drove on the right so we ended up doing the same.

[zhannaibrasheva]

I wonder whether a captain of a British passenger plane sits on the right chair or on the left chair in the cockpit?

[jimjimwilf]

We driving on the left as well in New Zealand!!!!😊🏖

[SodiumSyndicate]

We are also mostly right eyed, so driving on the left makes seeing oncoming traffic better.

[epov]

There other theories that might as well account for the driving on the left hand side of the road. These have to do with whips in carts and trees on the sides of the roads, and sitting on the right of the cart to see what came from the other direction. And If I am not wrong, most of the countries drove on the left until, in the French Revolution, it became trendy to drive on the other side "a la mode de la Noblesse". In my country, it was not until the beginning of the 20th century -1920s- that we started to drive on the right hand side of the road.

[archibaldtuttle]

Sorry -- my bad . I forgot that English cars still have a 'steer-board' that will get 'fouled' if you park on the right side of the road.
Nice speculation about the sword business -- however your shield would have been on the left side... Note that when knights joust they oppose each other shield-to-shield.