I was wondering about the driving on the right vs on the left issue. This is not about why any given country came to prefer any of the two sides; it’s not about if any one of the two is per se superior to the other. It’s simply about the possibility of switching sides.
I know that Sweden changed from left to right some time back in the 1960s, but this was in a mostly rural country and in a time when there were less cars circulating than today. If you wanted to convert a 2003, rather densely populated industrial nation from left to right (or vice versa), what would it cost? What would have to be done?
I think you wouldn’t need to do a lot of changes on the roads and highways themselves; off-ramps would simply become on-ramps and vice versa, crossroads and rotaries wouldn’t need to be modified. Of course you would prefer to have the steering wheel in your car on the right if you’re driving on the left, but it’s perfectly possible and legal to drive on the left with a left-steered car, yo you wouldn’t have to buy a new one. Surely the car manufacturers wouldn’t have major problems about changing their production from left-steered vehicles to right-steered ones, they are produced on the same assembly lines simultaneosly anyway.
The real problem, I guess, would be signs and traffic lights. You would have to install new ones facing the other direction on the same spot. How did the Swedish managed this when they switched? Surely they set a definite deadline as a “transition” period would obviously be hazardous. Did they install new signs before the deadline or afterwards? Each way you’d have drivers having to do without proper signage for some time. And of course there would, for some time after the switch, be an increased accident rates caused by drivers not yet fully accustomed to the new rule.
Has any nation recently contemplated switching and assessed the costs this would cause?
There is some interresting stuff about the Swedish changeover here (And that page contains quite a lot more info about which side of the road to drive on.)
It is worth noting that in Sweden there was a national referendum in which an alarming majority (85%) of the population did not want to change sides. The governement didn’t consider the public opinion though, and went ahead and changed, which most people today are grateful for. ([mini-rant] I only wish they’d do the same about the Euro[/mini-rant])
The final cost was estimated at SEK600M (in 1961 crowns) (cite)
One place which ought to consider changing is Hong-Kong. Right now China is in direct disagreement with the UN convention on road traffic, as that clearly specifies that each and every country should pick one - and only one - side of the road to drive on.
It will be interrresting to see if they manage to do it though. It’s just about possible that an authoritarian society like China is able to pull such a project through. And if they do it I want all the Japanese, Indians, Brits and southern Africans to take notes.
Schnitte, you’re not totally correct about roadways and roundabouts etc being OK. Here, and in the UK, the entrances to a lot of roundabouts have kerbing and islands built to move the vehicles into the flow of traffic. If you started going the “wrong way” around roundabouts, all of these would have to be rebuilt to push the traffic in the other direction.
Another thing is that most Cities now have complicated one-way systems. It would take quite an effort, and a lot of subsequent trial and error, to re-create this the other way round.
I wonder if any countries have seriously considered it in recent times?
No, but if the Japanese change, I’m sure the Aussies will follow. If that new Toyota ute has the wheel on the other side, I’m sure you’ll all swap sides in no time:)
And, frankly, changing in Oz ought to be easier than in UK. Your city centres have more space, and seem to have been made to some kind of plan, as opposed to the organic chaos you get in Europe. (With the exception of Melbourne CBD, the designer of which should be shot - Who came up with the idea of turning right from the left lane?)
More realistically though, I don’t foresee (or desire, for that matter) any changes in the near (or far) future, with the possible exception of HK.
Not really. Most of the one way systems are setup so that the main flow from 2way roads entering it doesn’t cross oncoming traffic. Also, the highway’s on-ramps would be screwed up.
A decade ago, the press did a little snippet on the cost of converting NZ to a RHD system. My memory’s fuzzy, but I think the cost of changing the bus system alone was in the order of $100’s millions.
You sure? The two-lane roads that meet the roundabouts are going to have their directions changed, as well. Imagine a road touching a roundabout on the south of the circle. The lane that had entered the circle will now be an exit so the curb (I’m Yank) that used to peel traffic out of the circle to head south will now guide northbound traffic (since the feeder road has switched) into the circle in the new direction while the curb that used to force northbound traffic to go in the proper direction entering the circle will now be used to guide people onto the newly switched southbound lane.
Not the designer of the city, for a start, as it was designed decades before cars were invented.
Anyone who thinks our city centres have more space, and are designed to a plan, hasn’t been to Sydney. It is true of Perth, Adelaide, and Canberra, but Sydney has more people than all those put together.
Well, In theory one would have thought so, but I don’t think it’s that easy. If there is not much traffic, a roundabout could probably be changed around without problems, but when you start adding more and more card there’s an assymmetry. Cars entering the roundabout will be decelerating, and there will be a pile-up of card waiting to get in, whereas in the case of leaving, modern cars accelerate fast enough that there is no significant pile-up of cars at the exit. Modern roads are built taking this into account, and there are more lanes going into a roundabout than leaving them.
I have walked through the Sydney downdown. It’s true that the traffic is denser than in Adelaide or Canberra, but that’s not very surprising.
What really surprised me with Sydney is that even there the city centre is relatively spread out (at least compared to, say Paris), the traffic is ‘friendly’ and the streets are comparatively wide. (With the exception of the Harbour bridge - I’ve never seen so narrow lanes before!)
what I meant about roundabouts is that many roundabouts have kerbing or sometimes fencing to force the traffice to enter the roundabout at a tangent rather than perpindicular. this kerbing would have to be removed and rebuilt in the other direction.