Questions you'd like answering, regardless of how trivial they may seem

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Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
There is one thing I always have trouble getting my head around. That is what side drive a car is? Is a left hand drive describing a car that is designed to drive on the left hand side of the road or is it a car that has the steering wheel / drivers position on the left of the car?

I always get confused by that. So are we a left hand driving nation or a right hand driving nation?

Seriously I never used to have an issue with this until i started thinking about the words and how they apply to the issue. Is it the position in the car of the driver or the position of the car on the road. Which would be the more important concept obviously would apply but which is it as i see both as valid ways of describing it. So that gets me thinking which one is it?? Daft h'uh?!!!!

It is Left Hand Traffic, Right Hand Drive in the UK.
 

Alex321

Guru
Location
South Wales
. The other confusing thing are the terms "near side" and "off side" which confuse me still. The near-side is on the left i.e. near to the left-most side of the road. The drivers side is the off-side

The near side is the side nearest the kerb. The off side (or more commonly driver's side) is the side away from the kerb in normal driving.
 

Gwylan

Guru
Location
All at sea⛵
There is one thing I always have trouble getting my head around. That is what side drive a car is? Is a left hand drive describing a car that is designed to drive on the left hand side of the road or is it a car that has the steering wheel / drivers position on the left of the car?

I always get confused by that. So are we a left hand driving nation or a right hand driving nation?

Seriously I never used to have an issue with this until i started thinking about the words and how they apply to the issue. Is it the position in the car of the driver or the position of the car on the road. Which would be the more important concept obviously would apply but which is it as i see both as valid ways of describing it. So that gets me thinking which one is it?? Daft h'uh?!!!!

This should be good.....
 

DaveReading

Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
Location
Reading, obvs
Those of us with long memories will recall that in the likes of Autotrader, imported LHD cars were always cheaper than their native RHD equivalents because they were less than ideal to drive on UK roads.

I remember when I used to visit the British Virgin Islands frequently (it was a rotten job, but somebody had to do it ...). It's a British colony, so you drive on the left, but because it was in the Caribbean, all the hire cars and most of the locals' ones were LHD. Go figure.
 
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