LEFT V. RIGHT
In the UK, horse-drawn carriages adopted a convention of travelling on the left side of the road, giving the driver plenty of space for his whip hand. In France and the US in the late 1700s, larger horse-drawn wagons controlled by ‘teamsters’ (a term famously adopted by a US labour union) were built for several pairs of horses.
These wagons had no driver’s seat; instead, the driver sat on the left rear horse. This way he could keep his right arm free to lash the team of horses, in the habit of animal husbandry of the time.
As the driver was now on the left horse, he naturally wanted to pass oncoming traffic on his left so that he could look down and make sure that his wheels were clear of oncoming wagons and the like. And so began the habit of driving wagons, carriages, horses, and walking on the right side of the roads and tracks across the
