I've done a fair amount of driving on site, and it's a bit of a trip. Usually right after the main gate there is a cross-over point where you yield and switch sides. And don't forget to drive on the right after you leave for the day!
If we drove on the left and built cars accordingly, then you'd see mine site tricks driving on the right.
Left and right are not inherently different in any way (except I guess for people being right-handed more than left-handed, though has little effect.)
Fun story: I was surprised recently by visiting one country that did things a bit differently: Burma. They drive on the right and have for 50 or so years… but they use mostly left-hand drive cars. So you'll see the driver's seat close to the curb. Took me quite a few taxi rides to figure out what that uncanny feeling was. (Also, they're one of the few countries with a timezone offset by a half hour increment)
The Swedish Wikipedia article[0] mentions this. In conjunction with the change-over, lane markings went from yellow to white. This article doesn't mention it, but I recall reading that some roads had both colours during the transition.
0: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggnin...
In particular I found this interesting: "[...] most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving [mirroring how horse-drawn carriages had been set up]. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."
I moved from a country that drives on the right lane, to one in the Commonwealth, driving on the left lane. It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing, and as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning).
And not all cars here have the seats on the right side. You can find cars that were imported and have the driver seat on the left. Or old/classic cars too.
You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. Reason is that bicycles sometimes drive in the opposite direction as cars. Also, sometimes cars, for whatever reason, will drive in reverse.
This is true, but when I finally went to a right-side country (Czechia) at age 29, I discovered that contrary to what I believed, I must not be, because I kept only looking right.
That would have to be reversed in a country with left-side driving.
Agree, but I have to admit that I don’t have that issue anymore even if I change countries.
On the other hand I never remember that my native country has a strict policy on punishing jaywalking while UK doesn’t. It’s even harder to remember since the streets in the UK have way more traffic.
Because space vehicles often need to share space roads?
There was an attempt in the 60s to convert to metric in US. If you are in SF bay area, go check this out:
Speed limits would take a bit of getting used to in some older cars, but I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over. Buying gas would take a little time, but it'll work out. A meter isn't all that different from a yard and rulers are cheap ways to measure centimeters. Signage and things will help folks do the conversion.
Temperature and distance, however, will take a bit longer. It has taken me a while to really understand how warm 10C is without having to convert the temperature, but I'm sure we can communicate such things. I still have no real handle on how far 100km is nor how long that would take to drive, though I know it is too far to walk.
Mostly, it would take legislation and money to start changing things (signs, for example) over. This would need to happen in 2 different stages so that for a decent time, both would be shown. Some things would just be immediately updated without issue.
Some of the sticker things probably needs to be funded as well - such as gas stations. I don't think they'd need to replace the entire pump, but it is a possibility especially for older stations.
Oh, and again, legislation needs to be there. In the current political climate, this is going to be a real hurdle and I can imagine it taking a patriotic tone much like the debate of teaching cursive writing.
I used to drive a 1986 Cadillac Eldorado which simply had a sliding switch to go from imperial to metric.
There was an attempt in the 60s
Did you notice that the SpaceX webcasts only use metric for the speed and altitude displays?
Plus, it's not like everyone else has fully switched. The UK still seems perfectly comfortable talking about weight in stones and all their cars measure speed in mph just like the US.
Btw, 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic
India would be a huge proportion of that.
>traffic accidents fell dramatically due to the extra caution people drove with
That's the story I heard, anyway. They were considering the change but then someone pointed out that the camel caravans continue through the night with the driver asleep on one of them and the camels know which side of the road they go on and if you tried to argue with them about it, well, they can be cantankerous, apparently.