Why do they drive on the left side of the road in the U.S. Virgin Islands? A cursory Google search resulted in several stories about donkeys but nothing definitive. And as we all know the SDMB is a much superior source of knowledge than Google.
Not only that, but the vehicle layout is the US standard, driver on the left. (Probably explained by US be the main source.)
Maybe it’s just to even things out. They drive on the right in the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Keeping to the left was the original convention when walking was the main way of travel (due to most people being right-handed, and wanting to have the right hand facing oncoming traffic (for self-defense, or greeting).
This convention still made sense when people began riding animals, and driving wagons pulled by a single animal. The usually right-handed rider used a whip, which would be less likely to get caught in trees on the right side of the road if they kept left.
But with the use of wagons pulled by teams of animals, the driver needed to be on the left side of the wagon, so that the whip could be applied (with the right hand) to both rows of animals. So keeping to the right was better.
Most jurisdictions gradually changed from ‘keep left’ to ‘keep right’. Some European nation (Denmark?) switched in the 1960s.
Most places that have not changed are islands (UK, Australia, Japan, U.S. Virgin Islands, etc.) I assume this is because if you’re an island, you don’t need to worry about about someone driving from a ‘keep right’ jurisdiction and forgetting about the change in convention.
One exception to this which I can’t figure out is Thailand, where they drive on the left.
The U.S. Virgin Islands were controlled by Denmark when purchased by the U.S. in 1917. Denmark, however, had been driving on the right side of the road since the 1790’s.
It was Sweden, not Denmark, that switched from the left side to the right side in the 1960’s. That was on September 3, 1967, a day now called Högertrafikomläggningen.
Island folklore is that donkeys were a major method of transportation and had learned to stick to the left - presumably thanks to the Danish influence. When cars were introduced the donkeys couldn’t be trained to switch sides and those first few cars found themselves having to stick to the right to avoid an accident.
Remember that the roads on the islands are hilly and very windy and there is no lighting - it gets very dark high up on a narrow winding country lane where trees crowd the road from every side.
Quite a few non-islands drive on the left besides Thailand - India and many bordering nations, many African nations (pretty much all the southern part of the continent), Guyana and Suriname. Malaysia has a good portion of non-island territory, but that borders Thailand. What’s a much more consistent factor is “former British possession”, or near one (Suriname is next door to former British possession Guyana). Then you have to wonder about Japan, as well as Thailand.
The U.S. Virgin Islands are in close proximity to the British Virgin Islands where I presume they drive on the left as well. This might be a factor.
Another interesting fact about the U.S. Virgin Islands is that even though it was a possession of Denmark for over 300 years, the Danish language was never more than an administrative language at most. The original (non-indigenous) inhabitants spoke Dutch or a Dutch creole called Negerhollands which was slowly replaced by an English creole and English.
I was with you up until this point. Why is keeping right better in this case? Is it just a question of the driver being closer to the centre of the road, thus allowing them to see more?
Most places that have not changed are islands (UK, Australia, Japan, U.S. Virgin Islands, etc.)
You would think so, but it’s not true (unless you take a very liberal interpretation of “most”). Pretty much all of Southern and much of Eastern Africa drives on the left. The soon-to-be most populous country in the world, India, drives on the left and is not an island (and so is neighbouring Pakistan).
As I understand it, in the days when cars were first introduced, Japan was more influenced by Britain than any other Western country. Specifically, most of the cars they imported were British. The same may be true of Thailand.
Yes. Same reason cars in the U.S. have the steering wheel on the left (and cars in the UK, on the right).
Come to think of it, once cars replaced wagons, the pressure to switch to driving on the right was reduced considerably. This is because it’s easy to manufacture cars with the steering wheel on the right, compared with the difficulties of the right-handed majority of people using a whip while seated on the right side of the wagon (or even more difficult, using their non-dominant hand). This might explain some of these non-island places that still drive on the left.
Several countries that drive on the right have railroads that operate on the left due to influence/purchase of British railroad technology. France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, and Sweden are the notable examples in Europe. Even in the US, the former Chicago & Northwestern (now part of Union Pacific) was/is the only left running railroad in the country. There’s no good explanation for why, however. One theory is British-influenced designers and suppliers of equipment. Another is that when initially built, the lines were only single-tracked, and the stations were built on the north/east side as that’s where most people lived (especially in the early North Shore suburbs). When double-tracking was done, they kept the inbound trains on the old track so morning commuters wouldn’t have to cross the tracks. That feels like a bit of a post-hoc rationalization but it’s still a possibility. So sometimes there’s very esoteric reasons for such things.