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From: "Daniel U. Holbrook" <dh3q+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.autos
Subject: Re: Did US drive on the left?
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 11:13:05 -0400
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
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References: <C55It0.Kpu@gucis.cit.gu.edu.au> <C56I5D.JK5@austin.ibm.com> <1993Apr9.145242.20176@cs.uah.edu> <cgranfel.734646442@vipunen.hut.fi>
	<reilly-140493131545@rreilly.fnal.gov>
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In-Reply-To: <reilly-140493131545@rreilly.fnal.gov>

Rob Reilly:

>whips and their tempers. Initially, all cars were built with the driver's
>controls on the right because that's the way people drove buggies, so the

This is just not so - many of the earliest cars had their steering
controls in the center of the vehicle, and there is no discernible
pattern of left- or right-hand steering controls until a few years into
the 20th century, when, in America at least, left-hand wheels became the
pattern. The mule team (or horses, I imagine) explanation, however,
seems to have some merit.

Dan
dh3q@andrew.cmu.edu
Carnegie Mellon University
Applied History

"This coffee plunges into the stomach...the mind is aroused, and
ideas pour forth like the battalions of the Grand Army on the field
of battle....  Memories charge at full gallop...the light cavalry
of comparisons deploys itself magnificently; the artillery of logic
hurry in with their train of ammunition; flashes of wit pop up like
sharp-shooters." 
               Honore de Balzac, 30 cups/day.




