I think a lot of it comes from what we were taught in grade school. In early grade school don't you remember lining up on the right side of the hallway to go to lunch. Also, if you have a military background, you are drilled to walk on the right side of the hallway.
Here in the US it is utter chaos if you are not on a military base. Walmart always drives me nuts with people walking down the left side of the aisle instead of the correct right hand side. Makes me wish everyone in the US had to at least go through basic training. You drive on the right, walk on the right. Here in the USA, it's block the escalator or walkway by just standing in the middle or even better have all of your friends stand shoulder to shoulder. But it's supposed to be stand on the right and walk to the left.

and/or Newcastle, anywhere north of Nottingham, really...

If you're in London, put your head down, choose your preferred side and stick with it - the assumption is the person walking towards you will notice and react accordingly.

If you're anywhere else in the UK, stop, have a little friendly chat and then move on. I have family in the rural south of Italy and there you stop, find a seat, a chat, a smoke, a coffee and maybe a light lunch...then move on.

Actually, the preference for right has a lot to do with how our brains are wired. In about 85-90% of the population the left half of the brain is dominant and therefore they have a dominant right half of the body. Yes, our bodies are weird (and wired) that way.

As such we tend to prefer the right in a lot of ways, even going so far that it seeped into our language (right, righteous,...). And of course when having to chose one of two sides (consciously or unconsciously), the right is picked more often than not unless we have been conditioned to do otherwise.

Not sure if there were mentioned already, but a few things to this:

In Finland we drive on the right side, and stand on the right side on escalators.

In Thailand, both are reversed. So you drive on the left, and stand on the left side on escalators (and pass from the right in both cases). Mentioning this as someone mentioned that just because they drive on the left side, does not mean the same applies in escalators and such. At least in Thailand it seems to matter.


It might be an urban legend (and I have probably mentioned it before), but one martial arts instructor (specialized in Japanese arts) claimed to me that the reason why at least Japanese walk (and hence, drive) on the left side is so that the when a samurai passes another samurai coming from the opposite direction, your sword sheaths will not clank together, as that was considered as a challenge to a duel or some such shit in feudal Japan (or maybe it is just considered rude or something). When you walk on the left side, the same will not happen, as the sheath is normally on the left side of your waist. Or maybe they were just wary of any incoming person grabbing their sword, hence not letting them pass from your left? (just guessing) This occurred to me as I've noticed how careful policemen seem to be in public so that no one can grab their gun from their waist.

I'm 60% sure that is just some urban legend, but there you have it. No idea why some people decided to drive on the right side, and others (apparently mainly Asian countries and UK?) on the left side.

I wish I could just be Scottish and stagger around drunkenly head butting people "sign" WTF you prat or eegit when I'm on holiday all I see is your drunken louts from your country that makes me feel ashamed to be britsh.

^ heheheh!

You should have called. Did you try visiting Victoria station in the morning? That's a mosh pit of businessmen where you could actually enjoy a pint on the pub above, just watching them collide.

Slightly off-topic but...

Escalators - opposite to driving. Overtake on the left. If you stand on the left, if you're lucky, you get glared at. If you're unlucky...

There is that - but when you have sword on left, its also easier to pull it and strike to your right side vs left side.

Also if youre riding horse and meet someone on the road: want to do something (strike or what else) with your main (right) hand while holding the harness with the other, its far easier to do if you ride on left vs right.

If i remember right, right hand traffic was born in French after their revolution - i think they just wanted to do things differently "in the new Age". Also apparently as french army was ordered to stick to right, they kinda started to force it upon others as well.

But i am no historian.

I don't have time to read much of the thread, but I'd doubt that which side one passes on has anything significant to do with which side of the road you drive on. There's one reason for that: if it was true, we'd see far more 'getting stuck' in areas containing mostly non-drivers, such as schools. Since there isn't any major difference that I've seen...Of course, primary schools [ages 5-11, for those who don't know the British system] there are more collisions, but that would be due to young children not paying attention/having learnt the subconscious signals/etc.

LOL I was just reffing how the previous, Scottish poster was describing himself and, yes the English make the worst kind of tourists. I also choose to play the 'I'm actually 50% Irish' card at this point not sure what good it will do but I'm panicking because I've just pissed off a Jock and don't want to be drunkenly head-butted, or force fed deep fried mars bars or anything!

*passes spade. points at hole. points out own nationality.

Don't say shit like that again please!

Just a linguistic corruption of Angles, the first people to inhabit Great Britain (later Anglo-Saxons).

So, land of the Angles: Angleland - Angland - England