dasdoing
Major Contributor
Countries That Drive on the Left Side of the Road
Driver’s ed 101: In America, we drive on the right side of the road. But some countries do the opposite, driving on the “wrong” side of the road. If you’ve ever been to the UK, Australia, Japan, or India (or watched TV shows and movies set in these countries), you’ve seen people driving on the left side.
And it’s not just a handful of countries that drive on the left… over 70 countries follow this rule!
Why Do Some Countries Drive on the Left Side and Some on the Right?
Most of the world drives on the right side of the road because Napolean Bonaparte was left-handed. This system goes back to horse-and-buggies. In the Middle Ages, horse riders and cart drivers rode left-handed because they wanted their right hands free to grab their swords in case of attack. So most of the world’s “traffic” stayed to the left back then.
But then, left-handed Napoleon was more comfortable driving on the right so he could keep his left hand free for sword-drawing. Napoleon was such a powerhouse that he convinced France and much of the European continent to stay to the right on the roadways.
But the Brits stuck to the left. And, colonizers that they were, they expanded left-handed driving to much of the Commonwealth. You’ll find that many of the countries that drive on the left today were once part of the British Empire.
Why Do Americans Drive on the Right Side of the Road?
Americans drive on the right for a couple of reasons. First, old freight wagons were pulled by teams of horses. Right-handed drivers rode on the left rear horse to use their right hand for maximum control over the whole team of horses. With this setup, driving on the right made more sense.
Secondly, the U.S. had no loyalty to Britain and felt no obligation to follow its left-side lead. The fact that Britain went left may have even incentivized patriotic Americans to go right. It’s also possible that influential Founding Fathers who spent time in France, like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, pushed for right-hand traffic rules based on their experience abroad.
Then, in 1913, Henry Ford created the assembly line to mass-produce early vehicles. This pretty much cemented the right-hand driving rule across continental North America.
Territories and Countries That Drive on the Left
Want to know if you need to be ready to drive on the left? Here’s a list of places where driving on the left is the norm.
Oceania
- Australia
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Cook Islands
- Fiji
- Kiribati
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Papua New Guinea
- Pitcairn Islands
- Solomon Islands
- Tokelau
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
Asia
- Bangladesh
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- East Timor
- Hong Kong
- Indonesia
- India
- Japan
- Macao
- Malaysia
- Nepal
- Pakistan
- Singapore
- Sri Lanka
- Thailand
Africa
- Botswana
- Kenya
- Lesotho
- Malawi
- Mauritius
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- South Africa
- Swaziland
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
Europe
- Akrotiri and Dhekelia
- Cyprus
- Guernsey
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Jersey
- Malta
- United Kingdom
South America
- Guyana
- Suriname
Caribbean
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbados
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- British Virgin Islands
- Cayman Islands
- Dominica
- Grenada
- Jamaica
- Montserrat
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- US Virgin Islands
Other Islands
- Bermuda
- Falkland Islands
- Maldives
- Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan de Cunha
- Seychelles
- South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands
In India they drive wherever there is space lol
Now for you peeps to convert to metric. 
