Deep Thought: The Right Side of the Road
Created | Updated Feb 21, 2021
 |
Deep Thought: The Right Side of the Road
Now, I am the backseat driver from America
I am not at the wheel of control
I am guilty, I am war, I am the root of all evil
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road.
Nanci Griffith, 'It's a Hard Life'
I spent part of this morning looking into the history of people driving on the left or right in different countries. No, do NOT rush to your keyboard to tell me that you know why they chose this or that. You are wrong1. Whatever urban legend/old wives' tale you are about to impart, it isn't true, so keep it to yourself2. You are warned. Nobody is exactly sure who chose what direction, when, or why, although we do know that in the US, people have been driving on the right-hand side of the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike by law since 1792. That means those droves of turkeys had to keep right.
I won't tell you what I think about that case between the US and the UK involving the woman who caused a fatal accident by driving on the wrong side of the road. It'll just start an unnecessary argument. I will tell you that my most hair-raising car ride was in the back seat of a rental car driven by a Midwesterner outside of Dublin. He was doing okay, mostly, down a country road. We were in search of a dinner theatre barn. The problem was his wife, who wasn't used to being on that side of the car. She kept worrying he was too close to the line. Miraculously, we arrived in one piece.
Elektra and I spent the next week in a horse caravan. Driving on the left side of the road. This wasn't a problem: the horse knew what to do.
Anyway, I wasn't so much interested in driving habits as in human intolerance generally. I suspect most people think 'tolerance' is a luxury item. They're wrong. Tolerance – setting the parameters of understanding wide enough to include everybody we deal with – is a survival mechanism. Like remembering to drive on whatever side of the road is the local rule.
It doesn't matter what you prefer. It doesn't matter that 'those people' get up your nose. It also doesn't matter a hill of beans (as they say where I come from) that you don't wanna. If you don't learn tolerance, bad things happen. The same as when you drive on the wrong side of the road. Which means the side of the road nobody's expecting you to be driving on.
No, there's no 'right' side of the road. There's the one the road signs are posted for. Just like there's no reason that spelling 'honour' with or without a 'u' is 'right', or 'better'. It's just local custom, so you go along with it.
US presidents have a terrible habit of confusing people. There was a story going around that when George W Bush hosted Irish diplomats at the White House, they had requested Nanci Griffith as a performer. And that Bush welcomed the singer to America. Nanci Griffith and George W Bush are both from Texas. I can't verify this story, but I can verify that Nanci Grffith blamed George W Bush for her six-year case of songwriter's block.
We need to learn to stop seeing our personal preferences as immutable laws. We have to stop trying to appeal to invisible and non-existent standards of perfection to justify our ad hoc prejudices. You have yours, I have mine. That's okay. It requires actual effort to bridge the gap.
And don't drive until you know which side of the road you're supposed to be on.
