> > Yep, they do that too. All cars built for use in the British Isles will be like that. And the left is actually the correct side historically, blame Napoleon for moving to the right.
>
> she asked him "Why do you drive on the wrong side of the road?" He immediately told her that they drive on the right side and it is WE who are wrong (semantics, eh!) and proceeded to tell us the entire story.
>

Semantically 'incorrect' in English, maybe, but historically correct. How did the cabbie explain it? I heard that the matter of driving on the *right* in America was finalized by Henry Ford. His ideas of mass production decreed that not only was the Model T Ford available only in black, but that it had the steering-wheel only on the left.

Prior to that, pedestrians and right-handed horse-riding swordsmen dating back to Biblical times had a preference to travelling on the *left* of the road. Pedestrians would follow the middle-eastern custom of politely presenting the "clean" part of the body and the "clean" hand (the right-hand side) to oncoming strangers; by custom the body's left-hand side was "sinister". On a horse, a right-handed swordman would wear his scabbard on the left, which meant it was easier to mount the horse on its left; thus making mounting and dismounting more convenient towards the left side on the road. Also, jousting was done with the lance in the right hand and the horses were kept to the left. Even a Roman denarius coin from New Testament times depicts two horsemen crossing past each other, right shoulder to right shoulder, meaning their horses were on the *left* side of the road.


Wolf "Heh. Now explain how the U.S. standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) was set at 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1.44 m). Is it true that this odd gauge number doesn't actually begin with Roman war chariots, but was developed even earlier when the OT Oral History was first being compiled?" spirit