On Mon, 2 Oct 1995, Jerome Keller wrote:
> Thanks to Ray Gibbons who wrote:
>
> You get onto a horse on the near (left) side. If you try to
> get on the right side, the horse will throw you *off*. So
> the right side is the off side, in England or the US.
>
> Ray, I agree that the near side is the side that you mount from, which
> Thus the question remains: If the near side is the side you mount
> from, wouldn't that be the left side for left-hand-drive cars and the
> right side for right-hand-drive cars?
To be serious for a minute, I think offside and nearside became synonymous
with right and left before cars were invented, so nearside is left and
offside right regardless of which side the steering wheel is on.
(Serious mode off) Besides, if it were not so, british parts books would
become impossibly complicated. All sided parts would have to come in RHD
and LHD versions. Instead of just O/S and N/S front fenders, you would
have O/S RHD and O/S LHD, as well as N/S RHD and N/S LHD. If they had
done things THAT way, the british auto industry would have gone into
a steep decline.
As far as why the brits drive on the left side of the road, well it is
simple. Has nothing to do with swords and shields. Just ask youself
this: you are riding your horse on the M4 when he pulls up lame. You
pull off the road, and dismount from the horse on the nearside (left). If
traffic drove on the right, you would be getting off in the path of
traffic. That's why we cannot allow horses on our interstates--we drive
on the wrong side.
Does that clear everything up?
Ray
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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