I was wondering if it is safer for left-handed (or right-handed) people to drive on the left or the right. Driving on the left side of the road could be easier for left-handed people, I guess, because the stick will be near your dominant hand… but then you will be holding the steering wheel with your non-dominant hand.
Is there any data on that? I am a TERRIBLE driver (really, I had to do my driving test 3 times…) and as I just woke up I could possibly be writing gibberish… but I am curious.
No data that I know of. I know several truck drivers who drive both left and right hand drive trucks, in the UK and on the continent. The big disadvantage of being on the wrong side is seeing oncoming traffic when looking to overtake, and approaching roundabouts or junctions where the road is not square on, but at an angle. Of course most trucks these days are automatics so don’t have a gear lever.
My wife is left handed, but it makes no difference for her as she has always changed gear with her dominant hand.
I’m right-handed with plenty of experience driving manual-transmission cars in North America.
The first time I drove a standard-shift U.K. rental car, it made little difference except for the novelty of it that wore off after about 15 minutes.
I’m right-handed and live in the US, but have done a fair amount of driving on the left (in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa & Japan). I’ve never found that the issue of “handedness” was meaningful - using the shift lever with the “wrong” hand has never been any problem.
The mistakes that persist the longest seem to be:
- Moving the wrong lever (windshield wipers) to signal a turn
- Driver enters car through passenger side
- As a pedestrian crossing a road, looking the wrong way for traffic (dangerous)
I find that driving on the same side of the road as everyone else is safest
When first learning to drive oppositely, biggest problem was looking wrong way when crossing a road. :smack:
Another problem was smoking: I insist on holding cigarette in right hand and had to cross-over to get to ashtry. But, I quit smoking. 
Oddly, perhaps, shifting gears presented no problem. I’ve always driven manuals. When I switched hands, the left hand knew immediately what the right hand had been doing.
I’m almost always the driver, and usually enter on correct (right) side. But with almost all my practice as passenger being in right-hand drive countries, I often try also to enter on the right as passenger. :smack:
I’ve driven in the UK, Australia, and NZ. Compared to N. America, I find once you are driving for a bit, you get used to it. The common problem (as others mentioned) is cleaning the windshield when you mean to signal a turn. Then after a month in A-NZ I found myself cleaning the windshield a lot back home for a month.
The biggest danger was not busy streets, it was deserted country roads and parking lots. Without the visual cues (other traffic) I found myself starting out on the wrong side, and switching when I realized oncoming traffic was wrong.
I drove a standard a lot. For some reason, foreign cars seemed to be more predominately standard not automatic. IIRC, the difficulty there was not adjusting to handedness. It was that the Honda Civic I was used to, R was under the 5 on the right, and in the British car, it was below the 1 on the left so the pattern was a bit different - 1 to 2 was not down, but down and over… To prevent grinding and other fantastic results you had to specifically pull up on a ring under the shift knob to get into Reverse -which I had to get out and ask before I even got off the car park lot.
As for not looking the right way when crossing the street. London has crosswalks marked with “Look Right”. You think “how hard can it be” but you don’t realize how heavily it is imprinted on your brain to only look the one way before stepping off the curb.
I have found through the years that it is much harder for me to return to Sweden after a vacation in Britain than arriving there. What I haven’t been able to figure out is if it is because I have spent a week or two thinking about the traffic flow the whole time or if old childhood reflexes from growing up in a left hand driving environment have surfaced and been reinforced again.
Once you start driving may be from Left Hand or the right hand, you get use to it and mostly driving depends upon your judgments and the way you drive in a situations, but mostly people find it difficult to switch from left hand to right hand and vice –versa as they get used the way of driving.
I learned to drive in the Netherlands and drive a lot in the UK, and I’m right handed. I hate shifting with my left hand. For some reason, if I haven’t done it in a while, my left hand assumes it’s the mirror image of the right hand, when actually it’s the same. I have no problem with the windscreen wipers, for some reason. I think the only problem I have is that my hand just thinks the stick should be the mirror image. When I first change sides I have a tendency to drive to close to the verge, but I know I do so I compensate.
My mum only learned to drive after coming to the Netherlands, she’s left-handed, and she just never learned to drive English cars at all. It completely freaks her out and she refuses to do it. She’d rather drive her Dutch car and have the problems overtaking on the bendy country roads. I tried to teach her, and she did have the wiper problem, couldn’t work the stick at all (despite being a lefty!) and was generally uncomfortable.
Those anecdotal data points + the rest of this thread tell me that everyone is different when it comes to switching hands and sides while driving! 
I’m left handed and lived in both the USA and UK. I don’t think that my handed-ness (spel?) made any difference at all even when I drove stick shifts. It took just a little while to adjust to shifting with the left hand when I moved to the UK.
Shifting was the least of my worries; being on the correct side of the road worried me more!
I actually had a little more trouble when I moved back to the USA. Mentally I must as assumed that I knew how to drive here and found myself on the wrong side of the road a couple of times. While in the UK, I was much more careful about not screwing up.
Moved from the US to Australia.
-Definitely agree with the wipers/indicators
-I’ve done that, but quite rarely
-Pretty much all of the time; I find it easier to get into the habit of looking both ways.
As many have said, I seem to be pretty much ‘ambidextrous’ with the shifter. I am extremely right-handed.
I had the same problem with wipers just when switching between my wife’s car and mine (both Chryslers). If there’s some kind of international standard, a lot of car companies don’t follow it.
I didn’t have a problem actually entering the car from the wrong side, but I did walk up to the wrong side a lot of times. (More in a parking lot than parked on the street.)
The pedestrian thing: yeah. When driving, it’s easier to stay vigilant. When walking, it’s easy to forget that new rules apply.
The only other issue was right turns on a busy intersection. No biggie, but they’re the ones that tend to be more confusion, for folks coming from right-side countries visiting left-side countries. Never had a problem, but was pre-warned, and just a little vigilance was sufficient.
You’re a snarky bugger, aren’t you? (Translation: you beat me to it.)
My stepmother spent a month touring Europe towing a caravan with no problems. She caught a ferry back to England which landed her in Portsmouth in the early hours. At the first roundabout she came to, she turned right instead of left. Once committed she had to continue but stopped when she saw a large truck coming towards her.
The truck stopped alongside and she expected to get a mouthful of expletives. Instead, the driver grinned down at her, “You’re back in England now love.” and roared off.
Me, too. I was prepared for all kind of difficulties shifting with my left hand, but it wasn’t any problem at all. Or should that be-- it wasn’t any problem a’tall. 
One thing not really related to which side of the road - IIRC right turns in NZ (which would be left turns in N. America) have right of way over left turns (i.e. if left turns had right of way over right turns here). Makes sense to get the car crossing oncoming traffic through the intersection first , but it’s hard to remember things are different while driving.
IIRC too, when I was there NZ was threatening to drop their speed cameras down to 5km/h over, because with 10km/h grace they were not getting enough revenue. Governments are the same the world over.
Is the OP left- or right-handed?
It’s been my experience that Righties often ask these questions of us Lefties cuz they think we can’t manage.
I’m left handed and it made no difference for shifting after a minute or two to adjust. The foot coordination is the most important, and the pedals are the same. Most turn/wiper levers are flipped, so every time I go back to the US where I’m originally from (I live in Japan) I screw that up occasionally for about a day. I never forget which side of the road I’m supposed to be driving on, though.
A good point. Brake/clutch/accelerator are apparently never mirror-imaged (which would plausibly take a lot of getting used to).
I have been driving around New Zealand the past 2 days learning the various aspects of driving on the left after 41 years of driving in the US. I have found only 2 real issues so far, looking for cross traffic and staying within my lane of travel.
My biggest problem so far is turning right at intersection without traffic lights. In the US, I look to the left, make sure there is no traffic and go. Here, I am looking to the left and on a few occasions, forgot about looking to the right. I have caused a few Kiwis to brake rather quickly.
Also, for some reason, I have been finding myself driving well left in the lane of traffic. My wife has let me know a lot about my drifting, I have no idea why I am doing it.
One more minor inconvenience is the location of the turn signal and wiper control. In the US, a flick of my left wrist is how I usually activate my turn signal. I have on a number of occasion signaled my turns by turning on the windshield wipers. It is wierd using my right hand to use the turn signals.
I have also been surprised by the number of left hand drive American cars I have seen here. Even a General Lee replica 69 Charger with a rebel yell horn.