It is known that driving on the left is safer for most people, why do most countries drive on the right?

I've driven in countries where they drove on the left side of the road and the right side of the road. I saw no advantage to either one.

Driving on the left here in UK makes sense historically when you consider that in order to get on and off a horse it is necessary to mount your beast on it's left-hand side. In carrying out the above operation[s] the rider is stepping onto and off the left hand verg of the road and is thus in a safe location. In those countries where traffic drives on the right, historically this would have meant a rider mounting and dismounting in the centre of the road - a dangerous location. One of the first countries to take to driving on the right was the newly formed USA following the War of Independance. This was probably more a two finger salute to the Brits than anything else. They and others who drive on the right are stuck with their problem. NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT You will probably have heard by now that the EU has finally bowed to British pressure and is going to allow UK to keep the Mile, the pound weight, the :Pound Sterling, the fathom and just about every other mad English measurement we all love. How did the yard come about then? Actually the King decided the argument. He stretched his right arm out and had a piece of string measure from his centre right finger to the tip of his nose. This, declared HM, is the English yard, which is half my height of 6-feet. Science has nothing what-so-ever to do with English measurements of weight or distance. It's all to do with magic, tried and tested methods and years of blazing arguments settled by the King or in the courts of England. Who needs science to measure from here to there? Only the Frogs. But, as we won the Napoleonic Wars and defeated the Frogs and just about everyone else in Euro-land, I do not see why we should not continue to have what is afterall the finest example of English madness. The railways in UK are actually measured in 'chains' [22 yards - a cricket pitch length] and not in meters. Blimey! Really? Yes.

The answer about riding/walking on the right so that you can present your doninant side for your sword in order to battle any oncoming threat. Countries that suffered conquests by Napoleon were made to use the right of the road. The French aristocracy previously used the left hand side of the road to travel and peasants were forced to travel on the right, however as Napoleon marched across Europe he enforced right hand side travel. The reason Napoleon decreed that his troops should march on the right-hand side of the road was as follows. During the Napoleonic period vast numbers of troops were moving around Europe. When two columns passed each other on the narrow roads of the time, with their muskets or pikes slung over their right shoulders, these weapons would crash into each other and cause disruption and delay. The obvious solution was to make the troops march on the right-hand side of the road so that the weapons were slanted away from the approaching column.

You are full of baloney. The safe side of the road to drive on is the side everybody in your country learns to drive on, and the side the cars are built for. To tell me it is dangerous to hold on to the wheel with my left hand because I am right handed is absolutely ludicrous. I have been driving for 42 years, and have been able to handle a steering wheel safely with either hand for 42 of those 42 years. I can carry a cup of tea in my wrong hand without spilling it as well, believe it or not. And guess what? I USE BOTH EYES WHEN DRIVING! I AM NOT RIGHT-EYED, LEFT-EYED, OR CROSS-EYED. I AM AMEYEDEXTROUS! If a person is so clumsy they cannot control a steering wheel with either hand when necessary, they have no business driving anywhere in the world. And you obviously have no idea how we ride bicycles here in Canada. Most of us are right handed, and swing our left leg over the bike. We learn that as children to prepare us for being able to mount and dismount on the curb side of the bike. I have been doing that, without problem, despite the fact I am right-handed, since I was 7 years old, the year I learned to ride a regular bicycle. The comparison to a rifle is ludicrous. My wife and I are both right-handed, we both ride bicycles the same, I hold a rifle up to my right shoulder, sight with my right eye, and shoot right, because that is what I learned at 13 years of age. My wife holds the rifle to her left shoulder, sights with her left eye and shoots left, because that is what she learned. In baseball, we both bat and throw right-handed, in tennis we both play right-handed, in hockey I shoot right, she shoots left, because that is what she learned as a child. Edit Sep 16 You seem to have the impression that we had to be force-taught to mount a bicycle from an unnatural side, that somehow our natural inclination is to stand on the side of the bike that has cars whizzing by. You get dumber by the word. If I were you I wouldn't visit Canada or the US ever again. One of us driving on God's unnatural side of the road might revert just as you are passing by and accidentally run you down. Just imagine, if you get killed like that, you prove yourself right. LOLOL!!

At one time all countries drove on the left,it goes back to when soldiers rode horses,if they passed an enemy on the road they could both fight with swords in their right hand. Over the years some of them changed,not for the better obviously.

Where is the proof for your allegations? I believe millions of people around the world negotiate their vehicles safely every day while driving on the right side of the roadway. If you can't come up with some hard and sure statistics to prove your point, then you are just wasting our time! ADDED: Again... Where is your proof? Your link mentions a 30-year old study about right/left preference, but no mention of any real factual scientific study that investigates the difference in safety between right and left side drivers. Opinions are like... well, you know what they are like, and everyone has one! GIVE ME SOME HARD FACTS!

Tend to disagree here.If a car comes at you head on a right hand dominant person will tend to turn to the right and go off the road vs a head on collision. Here in the States lefties are more often in head ons.

Its a conspiracy- to de-populate the Earth

'cause they are turd blankets