h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On a recent trip overseas I noticed something very strange...

I was in New York City, strolling down the street, minding my own business, when my progress was increasingly halted by a constant stream of people hurtling my way.

You might think that there is nothing remarkable about having to dodge people in New York in the middle of the day. The thought did cross my mind, but I was clearly doing something that was not normal in those parts.

I eventually saw a number of people heading in my direction, relatively unimpeded by those who were causing me so much trouble.

Naturally I joined with my comrades heading east (or whichever direction it was at the time!) and continued on my way.

Not having any particularly pressing thoughts on my mind, I pondered what had caused me to go against the pedestrian flow in such a manner. As I was now wandering along on the right of the footpath I was free to marvel at the snails pace that the traffic was moving at and continue my thoughts.

Then it struck me. What I had been doing, naturally, was to do what I usually did at home. In America, people drive on the right hand side of the road. Pedestrians were walking on the right hand side of the footpath! Where I live, people drive on the left. We all walk on the left of the footpath!

Of course, when there are three people on the street it's every man for himself, but when you get a sufficient quantity of people on the footpath at the same time, we seem to naturally and completely unconsciously gravitate to the same side that we do when we are driving!

Was this a bizarre coincidence? Or do we do this out of our unconscious conditioning from years of driving on the road?

I wonder what else we do that we have no idea what really caused our actions?

What do you think? Did you already know this? Was I slow in taking this long to figure it out? Or am I completely full of it?

Next time you are walking down a busy city street, think about what side of the footpath everyone is walking on, and if anyone actually realses why they are doing it...

BT!

since i've never been overseas, it never would have occurred to me that anyone would walk on the left side of the pavement. i guess we are truly products of our environments.

actually over here we are encouraged to stay to the right most of the time. it starts in schools, where students are instructed to stay on the right side of the corridors to assist the flow of traffic in short periods between classes. but now that you mention it, i realize that i do the same thing in shopping malls.

i guess i would find it strange to be on a crowded london street with everyone walking the wrong way

Hi Brolean,

It is strange, it wasn't until I got home from the US that I double-checked just to make sure it wasn't just me...

Now you mention it, I do have a vague memory of being told off at school in london because I was trying to walk up a stairwell on the right hand side!

I guess we are conditioned as children, and even though we don't often realise what we are doing, we go with our original program and (in this case) just follow the crowd...


BT!

Heya, at my school we also get told to walk on the left hand side. (I'm in Britain.) However, we seem to spend a lot of the time on the right as well, as do the teachers. Including the one who will walk down the wrong side of the corridor and berate you for not walking on the correct side, when the only reason you've moved over is because they're going the opposite direction and are therefore in your way.

OK, rant over. I'll go away and leave you alone now.

¦M¦

Even though we are started off on the conditioning at school, I'm still certain it's somehow connected to the side of the road on which we drive. Where it started is uncertain. I'd orginally assumed (way back as a child who wondered about such things) that it had to do with the majority of people being right-handed, but this was before I knew that the British did it differently. I'm fairly certain that the right-handed majority is an earth-wide thing, if I'm wrong, correct me.

Now, whether we are taught in school to walk on the right because we are taught by adults who drive on the right, or whether we drive on the right because we were taught in schools to walk to the right is also debatable. I'm pretty sure in the horse&buggy days the general rule when there was more than one on the street going in opposite directions was to go to the right, as well. We are taught to mount a horse always from his right, and a horse that has always been mounted on the right tends to shy when mounted on the left, but they get used to it fairly quickly when you mount from either side. This indicates conditioning.

I heard once a story of why driving on the left in Britain became the norm, having something to do with carriages and a wall or boundary, I think, but I can't recall what the story revealed. It's quite possible I read it here on h2g2, so if anyone else recalls this story and knows where it could be found, your insight would be appreciated.

My dad told me the reason was that most people being right-haded, when riding knights held their lances in their right hands, so naturally when dualling they would ride to the left...and this got carried into riding along roads and thus driving...

¦M¦

Then why is the left-side driving not world-wide? Lance-carrying certainly wasn't restricted to London/England. In the US "Wild West" days, most would have worn their holsters on the right, and riding down the left side of paths would have given them better access to their six-shooters.

It's a confusing issue.

Yes, exactly. Very confusing...

¦M¦

That's okay.. I believe we're still working on the chicken/egg thing, too.

Has to be the egg.

¦M¦

Hey Guys,

Had a big weekend so haven't checked this page for a few days... Thkank's for the comments.

On the horse issue, I heard that the reason that we mounted from the right was because knights etc. used to wear their swords on their left hip, so that was the only way to mount without it getting in the way.

The lance story makes sense, But I'm in OZ. We have never had any jousting here and we drive/walk on the left the same as England. Surely this is something that has appeared independently in each country?

Australia was mostly colonised by English, so that may explain it, but then wasn't America as well? We were both subject to English based laws etc.


I wonder what they do in other countries that drive on the right. Do they also walk on the right?

BT!