While we did, in a way, “switch sides”, that only meant we switched the side of the road we’re driving at. Most Swedish cars at that date were already left-hand steered.
AFAIK, it is perfectly legal for anyone to drive a right-hand steered car in Sweden. In fact, all postal delivery cars here are made that way.
I don’t drive myself; but if I did, I would certainly choose a right-hand steered car. Keeping out of harm’s way as much as possible (and beeing able to see that my right wheel stays clear of the ditch!) seems a bit more important to me than spotting heading traffic from behind another vehicle.
I once drove a LHD car in England for a short time, mostly in and around London. It took a bit of getting used to, but not much. I also drove a RHD car in Britain for a few weeks, mostly in rural England and Scotland and that didn’t take any getting used to at all. Yes, I had to shift left handed, but it was just mirror image and helped me to concentrate on keeping left. The hardest was turning right.
I knew a Norwegian who was around when Sweden changed in, I think, the early 60s. He bought a RHD car cheap because Swedes were selling them. He said he had no trouble driving it in Norway. The Swedes didn’t do it overnight. They banned all non-emergency vehicles for, I think he said, three days during which they switched all the road signs, bus stops, etc. One of the most expensive parts of the switch was putting doors on the right hand side of all buses and trams. But it had to be done.
One of the stories he told me from before the switch was that he was a student in Oslo, he would drive to his family’s farm which was located just 100 meters from the Russian border on the other side of Sweden and Finland. He would often drive in the middle of the night and the one-lane rural road snaked in and out of Sweden with no border controls, or even signs. When he saw the lights of an oncoming vehicle, he would have to guess whether to pull to the right or left. This story was recounted in one of Cecil’s books.
I drove a right hand drive Mercedes in the US, had no problems. Drove a 66 Chevy Impala that was imported from the US while I was in New Zealand. It really messed me up, I had just gotten use to driving on the other side while driving around the south island. Even after I came back to the US, it took me a couple days to acclimate to driving on the right hand side of the road.
When I moved to the UK I brought my American car with me. It needed some minor rewiring of the turn signals to meet regulations (they must be amber, not red) but that was it. I found insurance to be cheaper than in the US. The biggest hassle with it was using parking garages and toll roads where I’d have to climb over to the other side of the car to reach the ticket machine/toll booth.
How about seeing that your left wheel stays clear of an oncoming car’s grill?
There are very good reasons why left-hand drive cars are the norm where traffic stays on the right side of the road, and right-hand drive where traffic’s on the left. If you actually drove, I don’t think you’d be so certain about doing it the other way 'round.
In Indiana, it’s perfectly legal to buy a retired postal vehicle and use it as your regular vehicle. These have the steering wheel on the right side for postal carriers driving rural routes, and delivering to mailboxes on the right without getting out of the vehicle, which are more or less large jeep-sized. I’ve known two different people who owned these. They’re not great if you want to transport passengers, but if you regularly hauled some kind of equipment back in the days before the SUV craze, they were a real boon. One friend bought one specifically for that. The other just bought one because it’s what she could afford.
Indiana has no inspections and no regulations about what you drive. If you have a car that is so old it only has lap belts, you won’t even be fined for not wearing your shoulder belt. People drive cars missing doors, windows, hoods, and with spiderweb cracks across the whole windshield. It’s scary what is on the road here. I have been behind cars with such bad oil leaks, they kicked up black clouds pulling out of red lights like an octopus.
Yeah, that would totally wreck my car, and possibly the person in the passenger’s seat (if anyone were foolish enough to travel with me!) while I myself could survive with minor injuries. Plus, a camera on the left side could solve that problem. Heck, I’d settle for an old-time periscope!
The US Postal Serevice actually orders specially made RHD vehicles, for use by rural mail carriers, so they don’t have to get out and walk around the car at every mailbox.
There are, in the world, a few roads that are opposite-side drive. The famous highway of death, ,from LaPaz to Coroico, Bolivia, is such a road. Traffic drives on the left, so the driver, on the left side, can open his door and watch his wheels to make sure they don’t go off the edge of the road and plunge the vehicle into the abyss.
All vehicles in NZ are imported - we haven’t had a domestic car industry here since the late 90s.
Lots of second-hand cars are imported from Japan, and emissions and safety considerations mean those imports are restricted to modern vehicles that comply with recent standards.
I’ve driven RHD in Europe on LHS roads. It’s OK on the motorway, but much riskier on rural roads (the road down to San Tropez comes go mind).
Almost all roads in NZ are “rural”, and required a level of care and attention. Doing this in a LHS vehicle adds to the risk.
As does driving a RHD vehicle for LHD drivers. There have been a number of high profile issues with tourist drivers from LHS countries causing accidents or just driving badly on NZ roads.
The permit is for class A imports (basically, less than 20 years old) for permanent import.
For temporary (up to 12 months) only, it must pass a warrant of fitness examination and can be registered with the foreign plates.
That’s interesting. Around here I don’t usually see USPS out in the sticks. Tends to be people in what looks like personal vehicles with a magnetic sign an an amber light. Most are left hand drive and the driver sits almost in the passenger seat while operating with the left foot and hand.
the term “rural route” as used by the USPS is a bit anachronistic. I live maybe 10 minutes north of Detroit, and there are neighborhoods nearby which are rural routes. basically, if your mailbox is at the end of your driveway by the curb, you’re on a “rural route.”
Myanmar drives right (since 1970) but more than 90 percent of the vehicles are RHD, because they’re largely imported from Japan or India. It’s particularly unsettling to see the number of RHD buses in use—with passengers stepping out into traffic lanes. Suffice it to say that Myanmar people don’t have the Swedish sense of punctiliousness.
Importation of new RHD vehicles is to be prohibited after Dec. 2018. But millions will stay on the roads.
As a non driver, I’ve always wondered if it’s tougher driving your normal car on the wrong side of the road, or a car with the steering wheel on the wrong side, on the right side of the road…
in my experience, driving a “wrong-hand” drive car on the side of the road you’re used to isn’t that hard. I’ve driven RHD cars in the US, and the only real adjustments I had to make was where I looked for the rear-view mirror, and not driving too far to the left edge of the lane because of where I was focusing down the road.
I imagine it would be far tougher for me to drive a LHD car on the opposite side of the road because that changes a whole ton of things. not least of which is that it’s now right turns which go across on-coming traffic.
If you put me in a RHD car in a RHD country, I’d be really nervous.
In Québec (where we drive on the same side as the rest of Canada, believe it or not), vehicles with the steering wheel on the right-hand side have been banned for a few years. Those licensed before 2011 are still allowed on the road, but they don’t accept new ones.
I had very rarely seen old Rolls-Royces or Jaguars with right-hand steering on the road; but around 2008, youngsters started importing Nissan Skylines (presumably from Japan) and similar Japanese rides, and we got used to seeing a few speeding by in the passing lane. (The Skyline was never sold by dealers here, although I think there’s an Infiniti that’s based on it.)
I live on a real rural route served by a contract carrier in a RHD vehicle which happens to be a Jeep. In fact she owns two of them. Several of the contact carriers operating out of our PO drive RHD vehicles. Some are conversions with two steering wheels and dual controls while others are factory built RHD.
Some carriers use LHD vehicles and lean over a lot.
Back in the early 80s I owned a RHD ex postal service Jeep that had been sold by the local PO. I had no issues driving on the correct side of the road.