# Do The British Walk on the Left, too? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 23, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189 "2006-01-23T02:05:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/21 "2006-01-24T05:04:29Z")
> [@Hippy Hollow](#): > > There’s a place in America where people consistently walk on the right? Let’s say there is a _tendency_ to walk on the right. Try deliberately walking on the left where there is heavy pedestrian traffic and see what happens. You will find yourself dodging a lot more than if you walk on the right. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/22 "2006-01-24T05:05:52Z")
> [@1920s Style "Death Ray"](#): > > IME it is a subtle thing. People walk pretty much anywhere on the footpath but when two people are approaching head on, they will tend to veer to the left (in Australia and NZ), thereby avoiding an embarrasing collision. When someone from a right-side driving country approaches head on with someone in NZ then they veer to the right while the native NZer veers to the left. This normally results in a confused kind of waltz as the two strangers dart from side to side trying to get past each other. This was exactly my experience in NZ. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/23 "2006-01-24T05:36:27Z")
> [@Hippy Hollow](#): > > There’s a place in America where people consistently walk on the right? That was certainly my perception of New York City when I was there. I was used to walking on the left and I quickly realised that I was walking very much “against the current”. So I switched to the right. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/24 "2006-01-24T06:10:50Z")
I believe the OP is asking about which side of a path to walk - people passing each other within a sidewalk or building hallway. That’s a different issue from which side of a road to walk. I’ve observed that Americans definitely have a tendency to walk on the right. That is, if two people seem to be on a collision course, they would almost always veer to the right. In Japan (where they drive on the left) it’s the opposite. I’ve moved back and forth between the two countries, and it always takes some time to get used to. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/25 "2006-01-24T06:34:04Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Bloody monsters! Here you’re thrown out of the Association of People’s Cadres Mutual Aid Committee of Cyclists Celebrating the Reunification of Hong Kong with the Motherland unless you carry 30 dead chickens or 6 bottles of gas on your bike, never use lights (or indeed possess any), and always go the wrong way down one-way streets. Bells are mandatory, and must be used when travelling late at night in residential areas or when a pedestrian is audaciuous enough to be walking on the bit of the pavement that gets you to yoru destination quickest. Nice! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/26 "2006-01-24T13:40:14Z")
In Leeds University there are signs along the length of busy corridors telling the students to walk on the left, I seem to remember seeing similar notices in other busy buildings though I can’t remember which they were. ---
**Author:** ![seosamh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@seosamh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seosamh)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/27 "2006-01-24T16:34:32Z")
At many Underground stations, there are signs instructing you to keep to the left. There are exceptions, such as Victoria, where the station’s layout means that it is more logical to keep to the right. But the signs are not universally obeyed. Especially by visitors. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/28 "2006-01-24T22:30:22Z")
> [@Drum God](#): > > [Here’s a thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=26218) I started a few years ago that has some fun replies. I’m just curious - now that this thread has meandered left, right, and all over - about a post in the aforementioned thread. Someone, I believe it was a Kiwi, mentioned in passing, that he had received peculiar looks because he had pushed the wrong direction on a revolving door. Do revolving doors go clockwise (looking down from above) in New Zealand? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/29 "2006-01-25T00:59:46Z")
> [@CC](#): > > I’m just curious - now that this thread has meandered left, right, and all over - about a post in the aforementioned thread. Someone, I believe it was a Kiwi, mentioned in passing, that he had received peculiar looks because he had pushed the wrong direction on a revolving door. Do revolving doors go clockwise (looking down from above) in New Zealand? Yes they do, and in Australia. So when you walk through it, you walking on the left. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/30 "2006-01-25T04:20:31Z")
> [@CC](#): > > I’m just curious - now that this thread has meandered left, right, and all over - about a post in the aforementioned thread. Someone, I believe it was a Kiwi, mentioned in passing, that he had received peculiar looks because he had pushed the wrong direction on a revolving door. Do revolving doors go clockwise (looking down from above) in New Zealand? \*Everything \* is wrong way round in New Zealand - light switches are upside down, and telephone dials (back when there were such things) dialed counterclockwise. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/31 "2006-01-26T01:13:48Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > Nice! 😃 Thanks. It all seems, you know, so worthwhile when you get a little pat on the back every now and again. It was actually a joint venture with colleagues at work. I only knew the expression “Mutual Aid Committee” in Cantonese - I’ve just become far too acculturated and bicultural, you see - and had to ask them to give me the English. Ironic, huh? But life is they say stranger than fiction. God! I hope someone is printing all this out (TIP: transferring it to a Word file works well too). When the rush comes to publish my biography when I achieve world fame, _you_, yes you, **AndyPolley** , could be the one with the head start. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/32 "2006-01-26T01:37:20Z")
> [@CC](#): > > Someone, I believe it was a Kiwi, mentioned in passing, that he had received peculiar looks because he had pushed the wrong direction on a revolving door. Do revolving doors go clockwise… in New Zealand? > [@Colibri](#): > > \*Everything \* is wrong way round in New Zealand - light switches are upside down, and telephone dials (back when there were such things) dialed counterclockwise. Yeah, but you see they’re simple folk are Kiwis, and they think they’ve got to align their revolving doors with the water going down their bathtubs. And that’s why they make their bathtubs so big, because someone told them that if they only had little ones, the coriolis effect wouldn’t work, and the water would neither go clockwise or anti-clockwise, but just sit there forever. In the end, they decided not to bother with bathing themselves, and chucked the tubs out into the paddocks to dip the sheep in. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2006, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/33 "2006-01-26T05:35:18Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > That’s not just a British thing. It works the same way everywhere I’ve been in Europe. It’s not just a European thing, either–so far as it’s observed in Chicago, most escalator etiquette works on the same principle. So much so that when somebody clogs up the left I feel like yelling out “STAND RIGHT, WALK LEFT YOU IDIOT!!!” ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189/34 "2006-01-27T17:40:56Z")
Engrish had a good [photo](http://engrish.com/recent_detail.php?imagename=parasol-sign.jpg&category=Signs/Posters&date=2006-01-26) for this subject just yesterday. In San Francisco, people tend to walk three, four, and even five abreast, making it impossible for anyone else to get past. This behavior does not improve when it rains - indeed, that’s when the six-foot wide golf umbrellas sprout, making it difficult for even two of these monstrosities to pass. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-british-walk-on-the-left-too/341189.md?page=1)