Why Do They Drive on the Left in the UK ?

'There are no plans to switch to driving on the right, the Department for Transport said.'
'The convention of driving on the left is thought to date back to Roman times.'

Photos via Getty Images
'There are no plans to switch to driving on the right, the Department for Transport said.' 'The convention of driving on the left is thought to date back to Roman times.' Photos via Getty Images
TT
20

Why Do They Drive on the Left in the UK ?

'There are no plans to switch to driving on the right, the Department for Transport said.'
'The convention of driving on the left is thought to date back to Roman times.'

Photos via Getty Images
'There are no plans to switch to driving on the right, the Department for Transport said.' 'The convention of driving on the left is thought to date back to Roman times.' Photos via Getty Images

Many people who visit the United Kingdom wonder why do people there drive on the left.

Gareth Edmunds, 59, from Bristol, said his theory is that it's something to do with times gone by when if you met a stranger on the road you'd pass on the left so your weapon arm was on their side. He also agrees with Stephen Laing, curator of the British Motor Museum in Warwickshire who believes that theory dates back to Roman times.

"Most people are right handed, naturally mount a horse from the left and so need their right hand free for combat," he elaborates.

"Roman armies marched on the left hand side of the carriageway and this is a convention that stayed."

Motoring author Giles Chapman said Britain's Highway Act of 1835 enshrined driving on the left in law for this country and its colonies.

"The rule was exported, for example, to Japan, where British engineers planned its railways to drive on the left, leading to a similar edict for road vehicles," BBC reported.

Richard Mace, 63, who lives near Chatham in the south-east of England, said he had always been curious as to why they drive on the right in the US.

"The reason I have been given goes back to when wagons were drawn by oxen," he said. He could be on the right track.

In the late 1700s wagons pulled by horses arranged in pairs became increasingly popular, Fraser McAlpine wrote for BBC America.

The driver sat on the back of the rear left-hand horse, to whip the others right handed.

The best way for one wagon to pass another without banging wheels was the right hand side of the road, according to McAlpine.

The government examined such a plan in 1969, two years after Sweden switched to driving on the right, according to BBC. Its report rejected the idea on grounds of safety and costs.

In 1969, the financial burden of making the switch was calculated by the government to be £264m.

That equates to about £4bn in today's money. But given the huge advances in infrastructure since 1969 this would now be an extremely conservative estimate.

Stephen Laing, curator at the British Motor Museum, said he could not see Britain swapping sides.

"I think we are kind of set in our ways," he said. "The infrastructure is built around driving on the left hand side. I can't really see that changing in the future."

The Department for Transport said: "We do not have a policy on this because it's not something we are interested in at this time.



EU Scientists: May Was World's Second-hottest on Record

FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
TT
20

EU Scientists: May Was World's Second-hottest on Record

FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man sits on a tangle of branches in the Sacramento River while staying cool during a heat wave in Sacramento, California, US May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Fred Greaves/File Photo

The world experienced its second-warmest May since records began this year, a month in which climate change fueled a record-breaking heatwave in Greenland, scientists said on Wednesday.

Last month was Earth's second-warmest May on record - exceeded only by May 2024 - rounding out the northern hemisphere's second-hottest March-May spring on record, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in a monthly bulletin, according to Reuters.

Global surface temperatures last month averaged 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, when humans began burning fossil fuels on an industrial scale, C3S said.

That broke a run of extraordinary heat, in which 21 of the last 22 months had an average global temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial times - although scientists warned this break was unlikely to last.

"Whilst this may offer a brief respite for the planet, we do expect the 1.5C threshold to be exceeded again in the near future due to the continued warming of the climate system," said C3S director Carlo Buontempo.

The main cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Last year was the planet's hottest on record.

A separate study, published by the World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists on Wednesday, found that human-caused climate change made a record-breaking heatwave in Iceland and Greenland last month about 3C hotter than it otherwise would have been - contributing to a huge additional melting of Greenland's ice sheet.

"Even cold-climate countries are experiencing unprecedented temperatures," said Sarah Kew, study co-author and researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

The global threshold of 1.5C is the limit of warming which countries vowed under the Paris climate agreement to try to prevent, to avoid the worst consequences of warming.

The world has not yet technically breached that target - which refers to an average global temperature of 1.5C over decades.

However, some scientists have said it can no longer realistically be met, and have urged governments to cut CO2 emissions faster, to limit the overshoot and the fueling of extreme weather.

C3S's records go back to 1940, and are cross-checked with global temperature records going back to 1850.