The Often Neglected History of Road Convention, Part 1: The Rule of the Road and Its Origins
I am sure that most of us were introduced into automobiles at a very young age. When was the first time we were in a car? Perhaps the time when our parents drove us home from a hospital the day after we were born. As we grew up, we became more familiar with this form of vehicle and great moments took place inside them. In my case, mom used to drive me to school, dad drove me to the baseball field and I spilled a cup of McDonald’s milkshake once on my way to grandma’s place. But still I remember vividly, when I was about four years old, I asked my dad the most important question of my life.
“Dad, why is the steering wheel on the right-hand side of the car?”
“Because we live in Indonesia. Do you know that it is on the left-hand side of the car in the United States?”
Since then, the rule of the road went to become one of my particular field of interest. You might have noticed that some countries adopted cars of right-hand drive and some of left-hand drive, but why? Why didn’t the world standarized using one layout? Now forget about cars, because we need to begin from the time when all of our ancestors were on horseback.
Without further ado, let’s face it. Most of us are right-handed, about 90% of us. In feudal times, just like us today, our ancestors have so many things to protect. Land, property, family, so it is no surprise that they carried swords or some other forms of hand-held bladed weapons all the time with right hand at dominance. Horses were the main form of transport. Good old times, right? But what if some random horseman attempted to attack? On which side of the attacker they would have lean onto to defend themselves efficiently?
To this point, the answer is quite straightforward. Lean left. That is because having the attacker on your right side — on the side of your weapon — is theoretically more convenient. However, it worked the other way for mounted archers because it is easier to release an arrow if the target is slightly to the left. Nonetheless, archery was a warrior skill and not everyone was capable of using a bow and arrow, especially on horseback (unless you’re a Mongol).
This tradition created a psyche, a global one. When you encounter someone on the road whether on horseback or not, keep left, it will safe your life. Records have proved that this was practiced in almost all ancient civilisations. Greece, Egypt, China, evidences regarding this tradition has been found either in forms of manuscripts or drawings. Right, so how did we get into cars with steering wheels on its sides? Hold on, that is still way beyond this point.
Common Myths From the 19th Century
The Left-handed French Emperor
It was said that the practice stayed the same anywhere in the world until the dawn of the 19th century when Napoleon Bonaparte — a French military leader — led French troops across his continental campaign. Since he was left-handed, he then prefered to march on the right-hand side of the road. This became a popular believe that every European state he passed through or temporarily controlled were forced to adopt the practice. Although coercive force like so sounds feasible to cause change, historians have not found any legislation or legal evidence that the French did truly enforced the rule militarily.
Coachmen vs. Postilions or Coaches vs. Stagecoaches?
Another story came from America when the nation spread westward around early 19th century. Known as Manifest Destiny, this belief led thousands of Americans to move and resettle the territories of their western coasts. According to M.G. Lay’s Ways of the World: A History of the World’s Roads and of the Vehicles That Used Them (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992), most of them migrated using Conestoga wagons, a heavy yet high-capacity form of stagecoach, usually drawn by two collumns of horses with numbers of pairs depending on its payload size. In England, the population of heavy stagecoaches did not exceed the more common light coaches. These were small single-line horse-drawn coaches with a coachman’s seat on its front, a wide bench that allowed them to move freely to check the cleareance between their vehicle and oncoming ones.
Meanwhile, American stagecoaches weren’t designed with that in mind. It had no coachman’s seats, which means that somebody had to be on one of the two rear horses. Known as postilion, in this position, it is spatialy more favorable to be on the rear-left horse since most of us are right-handed, which makes it easier to whip the lead horses. Another reason to sat on the left horse was that most people mount horses from the nearside (left side). As a result, in order to go through road conventions safely by ensuring the clearance between approaching stagecoaches, they started practicing keep right.
Aside from those popular myths that spreaded through generations, the rule of the road back then was not as internationally regulated as today. Global road traffic was not yet congested, there were no cars and because the collision rate amongst pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles were low, most places simply applied the rule informally and without any means of uniformity. Colonial powers sought to spread their culture into their colonies. Britain for example, a keep left country, ratified laws to ensure that traffics on two-way public roads must keep left. This influence can still be seen today in most former British colonies where the rule is kept alive.
“So what about cars? Now let’s get back into cars.”
The fact that some cars are right-hand drive and some are left-hand drive depends on the rule of the road in a jurisdiction. Most keep left countries are using right-hand drive cars and keep right countries are using left-hand drive cars. This setup is known as center line control. If the setup is vice versa — say you drive a British registered car in France — then you are driving on kerb control. Both setups of vehicle control were not that regulated in the past but as cars became more widespread and road traffics went faster, safety becomes a pressing issue. Although most countries today enforced center line control, both systems has its own advantages and disadvantages.
In center line control, the driver’s seating position is closer to the center of the road, hence its name. In this case, you will have a better visibility when overtaking slower vehicles as well as more ease on determining your clearance when encountering vehicles from the opposite direction. This went to become the worldwide trend as years of research through the 20th century claimed that this arrangement has a superior means of safety. But is kerb control that unsafe?
In contrast, kerb control is when driver’s seat is closer to the kerb or the edge of the road. One plus point to this setup is that you don’t need to be on the road when entering a vehicle as a driver. Moreover, there was an commision in Switzerland back in the 1970s that advocated the opportunity for Swiss citizens to obtain right-hand drive cars in that keep right country. The argument was that kerb control is safer when driving around narrow alpine roads. In this way, drivers may determine the clearance between their car and rough walls or steep cliffs on their kerb side. Nonetheless, this setup did not went popular and almost all countries today adhere to center line control.
Almost all? So that means there are kerb control countries, right? There is, and that is Myanmar (Burma). Myanmar was historically part of British India, a keep left and right-hand drive territory. Suddenly, on December 1970, the country changed its rules to keep right, while most of the cars in the country were Japanese-made right-hand drive cars. Until today, I have not found any literature that explains the reason for the change. When you take a look at Myanmar on a map, it shares borders with three keep left countries (Bangladesh, India and Thailand) and two keep right countries (China and Laos). Although it is still a mystery for most, Peter Kincaid mentioned in his book, The rule of the road: an international guide to history and practice (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986) that the only thing he could predict is that Myanmar’s motive was either patriotic (erasing British colonial heritage) or economic (strengthening ties with China).
The Rule of the Road
Ian Watson on his qualifying paper, The rule of the road, 1919–1986: A case study of standards change (Rutgers University, 1999) distinguished this process into three stages.
1. The Task: Driving on a two-way public road
2. The Problem: On which side of the road shall you keep when meeting incoming vehicles
3. The Solution: The rule of the road, either you keep-left or keep-right
The rule of the road is actually a simple concept and it served as a solution for the standardization of road conventions. Nevertheless, this analysis will never be achieved if not for Peter Kincaid and his thorough research about this worldwide phenomenon. Before the arrival of his book — mentioned above when we discussed about Myanmar — in 1986, much of information about the rule of the road came from short articles like this. Kincaid dedicated his time to travel the world and investigated how the rule of the road took shape in most countries.
It was wise for him to take 1919 as a reference point. The Great War just ended and the resulting border changes were easily comparable by the time he published his book. Fast forward to 1968, the Convention on Road Traffic was held in Vienna. The main objective of the convention was to constitute the legality of motor vehicles for traveling across different jurisdictions. One essential resolution of the agreement however, is that the rule of the road must be uniform on national level but not internationally. This was mentioned in Article 10(1) and it implies that it is allowed to share borders with a country of the opposite rule, but all territories within a sovereign state must adhere to one.
Afore the convention, some countries had different rules on provincial levels. One example is Canada. A British dominion until 1982, only in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario where keep right has always been practiced as they were influenced by their French presence as well as their close vicinity to the heavily congested parts of Northeastern United States. The rest of Canadian provinces changed to keep right in various different times between the 1920s and 1940s to achieve national standardization. Italy was also not uniformed until 1923, when Benito Mussolini decreed that the entire country must drive on the right to harmonize with neighbouring countries such as France and Switzerland. Before that, each provinces may have different rules.
This is the end of the first part. At the second part, we will discuss further about the history of road convention through case studies from countries that I have selected. My sources and recommended reading materials will be listed by the end of the second part. Stay curious, as always.
