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The fact that we drive on the right is the precise reason why trucks have less of a blind spot on the left. (We place the driver's seat closest to the center of the road, while on a mine site it's better to be close to the edge of the road.)

If we drove on the left and built cars accordingly, then you'd see mine site tricks driving on the right.

Left and right are not inherently different in any way (except I guess for people being right-handed more than left-handed, though has little effect.)

Fun story: I was surprised recently by visiting one country that did things a bit differently: Burma. They drive on the right and have for 50 or so years… but they use mostly left-hand drive cars. So you'll see the driver's seat close to the curb. Took me quite a few taxi rides to figure out what that uncanny feeling was. (Also, they're one of the few countries with a timezone offset by a half hour increment)



Burma is a fascinating story. They switched, like Sweden, but without planning.

The reason? A fortune teller said the country would be prosperous.

And now people exit the bus into the traffic instead of the sidewalk. Because nobody has the money to replace the buses or cars.


That is fascinanting. Can you provide a source for this story about a fortune teller?


They could switch sides of the road, instead of replacing the vehicles. Moving and rotating all the signs is probably cheaper and easier.


Replacing the vehicles is effectively free, if you do it slowly as you replace vehicles anyway.


> except I guess for people being right-handed more than left-handed, though has little effect.

Eye dominance is also a thing.


I'm from the UK so the steering wheel 'belongs' on the right hand side. However, I've driven thousands of miles across Europe and Canada.

The only time I ever struggled with driving on the other side (other than the occasional lapse while doing a U-turn on a very quiet street) was driving over the Alps in a manual hire car, driving a very narrow road with hundreds of switch-backs, where my weak hand (I'm right handed) wasn't used to the task of steering.

I can't say I've ever noticed any difference in vision.




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