Question for those who drive on the left side of the road

[jknaus]

Most of the places I have driven you drive on the right side of the road. On a 4 lane road or highway the right lane is the slow lane and the left lane is the passing lane, if the drivers actually know how to drive that is. So what I am curious about, is when you drive on the left is the right lane now the passing lane, or is it the slow lane? I drove in Raratonga, but that was a two lane road around the island and so never ran into this situation. The few times I braved driving in Australia I dont remember much except the traffic circles Just curious as I have been playing European Trucker for a bit and just has some adventures in the south of England, and wasnt sure exactly which lane I should be driving in. By the way why would they have such a weird speed limit of 97 down by Southport?? Why not an even 100?
James

 

[moon puppy]

Don't know about the speed limits but I'm pretty sure that all inside lanes are for passing regardless if they are driving on the wrong side or not.
@paddy @Brokeneagle ?

 

[RichB]

The Southport speed limit is for a single carriage way, 60 mph converted to 97 km/h.

The left lane is for "routine driving", the right hand lane(s) are for overtaking or making right turns when there is more than two lanes.

(Our english crew should be glued to their telly with their favourite beverage in hand watching England vs Serbia in Euro 2024.)

Cheers,
RichB

 

[moon puppy]

Our english crew should be glued to their telly with their favourite beverage in hand watching England vs Serbia in Euro 2024.

Running this through google translate returns nothing...except some spell checking.

 

[paddy]

in any country traffic always travels with the faster lanes nearest the central reservation other wise joining traffic would have to pull into the fast lane
In the UK we drive on the left like Australia and Japan, distances are always in miles and speeds in Miles per hour
A few years ago we got caught up in the European union and this caused all sorts of problems like fuel had to be sold in litres but milage was worked out per gallon, cars have wheels in inches like 18 inch dia but luggage space is litres
Its a mess, we buy pints of milk and pints of beer but a litre of petrol.
Your game has set speed limits in kilometres and hour which is odd because no one in the UK would describe a speed in Kilometres and certainly no road signs in kilometres.
The reason fuel is still in litres is because when they switched to litres in the 1980'a fuel was £1.00 a gallon, it they changed back it would be nearly £7.00 a gallon of which over half is tax and no Government wants to bring this to peoples attention

 

[Paulw]

in any country traffic always travels with the faster lanes nearest the central reservation other wise joining traffic would have to pull into the fast lane
In the UK we drive on the left like Australia and Japan, distances are always in miles and speeds in Miles per hour
A few years ago we got caught up in the European union and this caused all sorts of problems like fuel had to be sold in litres but milage was worked out per gallon, cars have wheels in inches like 18 inch dia but luggage space is litres
Its a mess, we buy pints of milk and pints of beer but a litre of petrol.
Your game has set speed limits in kilometres and hour which is odd because no one in the UK would describe a speed in Kilometres and certainly no road signs in kilometres.
The reason fuel is still in litres is because when they switched to litres in the 1980'a fuel was £1.00 a gallon, it they changed back it would be nearly £7.00 a gallon of which over half is tax and no Government wants to bring this to peoples attention

I am very acquainted with pints of bitters, stouts, and porters. Tasty.

 

[Brokeneagle]

As above, in Oz left lane is the slow lane and the right and beyond is for passing......our road signs say keep left unless overtaking(ie.passing). Not sure what the Pomms are on about but our distances are in Km and our speeds are in Km/ph. I don't know how you could operate in a 2 system setup with miles/ km / decimals and feet/inches
We fully transferred from miles , feet, lbs and Oz etc to decimal in the very early 70's.

 

[RichB]

Canada did the switch to metric in the 70's as well, for the most part. Because so much is integrated with our southern neighbours, automotive, aerospace and building trades still largely use imperial measurements. Things like plywood and gyproc sheets are still made for 16" centres (406mm). Lumber is referred to as 2x4 (38x89mm), 2x6 (38x140mm), etc. Some of the aircraft we've purchased from Europe have both Metric and Imperial componnets and fasteners.

Most of Canada (Alberta thru Quebec) has always driven on the right hand side. British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island drove on the left until 1924. Newfoundland switched to the left in 1947, just before Canada joined them in 1949.

Cheers,
RichB

 

[jknaus]

As above, in Oz left lane is the slow lane and the right and beyond is for passing......our road signs say keep left unless overtaking(ie.passing). Not sure what the Pomms are on about but our distances are in Km and our speeds are in Km/ph. I don't know how you could operate in a 2 system setup with miles/ km / decimals and feet/inches
We fully transferred from miles , feet, lbs and Oz etc to decimal in the very early 70's.

As Rich has said we switched years ago. But one oddity of Canada is, if you ask how far it is from point A to point B you're going to be told in hours and minutes rather than miles or Kilometres. Like Edmonton is 3 hours from here.
James

 

[paddy]

I worked as a toolmaker in engineering all my life and we worked in Imperial.
All the machinery was calibrated in Imperial for example screw cutting and vernier dials for adjustment. the imperial thread system was streets ahead of modern metric with a much wider selection of thread pitches and gauges from say 5 threads per inch up to 50-60 TPi
Metric is just a generic thread and not designed for specific applications. For example every one knows what a round head screw is ? Metric dont have an equivariant.....
A lot of things did go metric of a sort in the 70's
For example a 2Ib bag of sugar became a 1KG bag of sugar but no one bought a 1kg bag, they bought the the 1kg but it was now called a 2.2Ib bag
I am biased i suppose as i was brought up imperial in school. I think kids today are taught metric but they still by a pint of milk or a pint of beer
The still drive at 30mph and travel so many miles, they are still measured as 6ft 2inch tall and still weight in stones, lbs and ouncers
Imperial just makes more sense and is way more adaptable. Maybe when there are 10 months in a year, 20 hours in a day and 10 minutes in a hour metric might make sense

 

[Heavens Eagle]

@paddy I have a quick question paddy, how much does a stone weigh? I have read that term a fair amount but I guess never looked it up. I am sure a lot of the "Yanks" on this side of the pond have seen the term and also kind of wondered.

 

[paddy]

14Ib in a stone Paul

So a person weighing 15 stone is 210 Ib
Weighing 211 Ib he would be 15 stone 1Ib and so on

 

[paddy]

Stone, British unit of weight for dry products generally equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois (6.35 kg), though it varied from 4 to 32 pounds (1.814 to 14.515 kg) for various items over time. Originally any good-sized rock chosen as a local standard, the stone came to be widely used as a unit of weight in trade, its value fluctuating with the commodity and region. In the 14th century England’s exportation of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones. Trade stones of variant weights persist, such as the glass stone of 5 pounds. The stone is still commonly used in Britain to designate the weights of people and large animals.

This is a rabbit hole you could go down and get lost..... the British pound money dates back to Roman times and was standardised in 775AD in Anglo-Saxon England and was equivalent to 1 pound weight of silver. A pound of silver is now £215 so thats inflation for you

 

[Heavens Eagle]

Stone, British unit of weight for dry products generally equivalent to 14 pounds avoirdupois (6.35 kg), though it varied from 4 to 32 pounds (1.814 to 14.515 kg) for various items over time. Originally any good-sized rock chosen as a local standard, the stone came to be widely used as a unit of weight in trade, its value fluctuating with the commodity and region. In the 14th century England’s exportation of raw wool to Florence necessitated a fixed standard. In 1389 a royal statute fixed the stone of wool at 14 pounds and the sack of wool at 26 stones. Trade stones of variant weights persist, such as the glass stone of 5 pounds. The stone is still commonly used in Britain to designate the weights of people and large animals.

This is a rabbit hole you could go down and get lost..... the British pound money dates back to Roman times and was standardised in 775AD in Anglo-Saxon England and was equivalent to 1 pound weight of silver. A pound of silver is now £215 so thats inflation for you

Thanks for the history lesson Paddy! I always find it interesting to learn about things like this. What you just posted is also what happens when you take a monetary value (a pound of silver) and change it to a fiat currency where the money is valued by decree and actually is worthless. This is basically what all the western nations (and most others) now have and also why everyone has such high inflation going on.

 

[Tim A.]

I'd never make it on the roads over there. Might as well just crash now!

 

[paddy]

There is a rumour here that there will be a gradual switch to driving on the right in a few years time starting with lorry's ,followed by cars a year later.

The old ones are the best

 

[moon puppy]

I'd never make it on the roads over there. Might as well just crash now!

We have a sales guy who visits UK often, he told me it wasn't that big of a deal switching, since your sitting on the wrong side of the car you basically aiming to the center line of the road. I asked him if instinct doesn't push him right in traffic he said yeah, that's still the issue.