Ireland and Britain are the only countries in the EU to continue to drive on the left. Barry McCall assesses the chances, and risks of changing sides
Once again, we seem to be the "odd man out".
Everyone who has experience driving on the Continent in a right-hand-drive car will have, at some stage, given passing thought to why we continue to drive on the left while our mainland cousins drive on the right.
Of more than 300 million people and 15 countries in the EU, 60 million in two member states drive on the left with the remainder taking to the right. Even the so-called accession states, awaiting entry to the EU, all drive on the right and you have to go as far as Asia, the Caribbean and Africa to find other left-hand road systems.
Every so often there are calls for us to switch over. These calls have had various motivations, from the political to the practical. While the political motivations are hardly well grounded - a desire to be even less like our British neighbours - there have been some quite respectable practical reasons advanced.
The most practical is the aim to address Ireland's lack of competitiveness due to our peripheral location in the EU. The argument goes that trade is restricted in both directions with Irish truck drivers having to spend a lot of their time driving on the "wrong" side when on the Continent, and the same applying to Continental drivers when they come here.
However, no economic study has ever been carried out into this particular facet of our competitiveness so no strong argument can really be mounted for a change on this basis.
Others have mistakenly looked at car prices on the Continent and argued that access to the import of left-hand-drive cars from that source would make motoring cheaper here. What they forget is that the basic price of a new car in Ireland, regardless of the position of the steering wheel, is among the lowest in Europe.
This is because of the high level of taxation in the form of Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT), imposed on the vehicles at the point of import. The existence of VRT means that, at best, there would be no difference in price between vehicles sourced in Continental Europe and Britain or elsewhere and at worst that there might actually be a price increase.
The other reason usually advanced is the cause of harmonisation. "It makes sense for everyone in the same economic union to drive on the same side of the road," the argument goes. But this tends to fall in the face of the practicalities.
That the Government clearly regards any change in our current system as impractical is demonstrated by the fact the Department of Transport has never carried out any feasibility study into the question (and we all know how quickly they turn out a study if there is even a minute chance of changing policy).
In fact, it would seem no real thought has ever been given as to how the change could be implemented.
But why are we different? Why do we drive on the left? According to The Guinness Book of Answers, of the 221 separately administered countries and territories in the world, 58 drive on the left and 163 on the right.
It is believed that in Britain left-hand-driving is a legacy from the preference of riders and soldierrs passing an approaching horseman or carriage right-side to right-side in order to facilitate right-armed defence against sudden attack.
On the Continent postillions were mounted on the rearmost left horse in a team, and thus preferred to pass left-side to left-side.
While some countries have transferred from left to right, the only case recorded of a transfer from right to left is in Okinawa on July 30th, 1978.
While it is generally known that the ancient Romans drove on the left it is not known if this convention survived in Europe beyond the dark ages. There is a common belief that left-hand-driving was legislated across Europe by papal decree in 1300.
However, travel historian Peter Kincaid could find no records of such a Europe-wide decree. To the contrary, he found evidence that Pope Boniface VIII ordered pilgrims on the bridge of St Angelo, en route to and from St Peter's Basilica in the jubilee year of 1300, to keep to the right.
There is further evidence that the French always drove on the right, and that this is the real source of current European practice. When Napoleon conquered much of Europe during the early part of the 19th century he decided to create an early version of the EU known as the "Continental System". This was a massive free trading area which had as its twin aims the enrichment of France and the impoverishment of those countries outside of it - namely Britain. As part of the system Napoleon decreed that countries within it conform to French practice and drive on the right.
However, the current 'empire' of the world, the US, was once a left-hand-driving area. In the early years of English colonisation of North America, English driving customs were followed and the colonies drove on the left.
The colonies gradually changed to right-hand driving after independence from England. In his book The Rule of the Road Kincaid quotes an English author writing in 1806: "in some parts of the United States, it is a custom among the people to drive on the right side of the road", implying that in other parts, people still drove on the left.
Canada is a different matter entirely. Ontario and Quebec have always driven on the right, because the first European settlements in these areas were French.
The English occupied the coast and drove on the left in Atlantic Canada and probably in New England.
When the English won control of Quebec from France, the French people living there were permitted to retain many customs, including their language, religion, civil law, and evidently the custom of driving on the right.
Settlement continued to spread inland across the continent, remaining on the right-hand side of the road.
British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces, however, were administered separately from Upper and Lower Canada, and even after Confederation remained staunchly English and on the left side of the road. They switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the US.
To make matters even more confusing, there is a 10-20 km stretch of road in south western Montreal, Quebec, Canada that is left driven, according to another motor historian Edwin Mann.
At each end of this stretch of road there are crossing bridges to guide cars back to the right side of the road.
This road is Autoroute 20 near the Lachine Rapids where it meets the Ottawa River.
One of the key reasons why little consideration has been given to a change in this State is the difficulties it might create at the border with the North.
However, there are several instances of border crossings between countries which drive on opposite side.
At the borders between China and Pakistan, Hong Kong and Macao, traffic simply swaps from one side of the road to the other having cleared customs while there is one bridge across the Mekong River between Thailand (driving on the left) and Laos (driving on the right), which opened in 1994.
Vehicles keep left on the bridge, and cross over at a traffic signal at the Laos end of the bridge.
So why don't we do it? One Department of Transport official quoted Bram Stoker's Count Dracula: "That way lies madness."