[herveus at saltmine.radix.net: Re: [MR] What side of the road]

[Michael Houghton]

Howdy!

On Mon, Nov 19, 2001 at 09:29:40PM -0500, Phillip Jones wrote:
> Click and Clack were wondering about why th English drive on the left side
> of the road, and posited this was a hangover from when knights road around.
> They wanted to be on the left so they could get the sword arm into action.
> Sounds spcious to me, but it got me to wondreing.
> 
> WHY do the english drive on the left? What side of the road did
> cart/foot/horse traffic travel in other places and times?
> 
I heard it explained thus:

English and continental plows turn the furrow in opposite directions.
When you have a team of two horses pulling the plow, the lead horse
wants to be either in the furrow or not (I forget which). When you 
hook the team to the wagon, they get arranged the same way. The
driver sits behind the lead horse. 

The bulk of the wagon traffic in America was non-English, leading
to the driver sitting on the left...

I heard this at a plowing contest, from one of the judges who has
been doing this for ages.

I have made no attempts to confirm or refute this story, but it
sounds good to me...

yours,
Herveus
-- 
Michael and MJ Houghton   | Herveus d'Ormonde and Megan O'Donnelly
herveus at radix.net         | White Wolf and the Phoenix
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                          | http://www.radix.net/~herveus/