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What was the reason to change from right hand to left hand steering? A friend says it had something to do with horses. Can anyone elaborate?
I’m not going to Google it, which would probably give you some theories and history, but talk off the top of my head.
In the days of stages and carriages, it was very convenient for driver to be on the right, he’d pull up in front of the stop or local saloon, hop down to the right and discharge his passengers.
When cars first started being built, it just seemed correct to keep the steering on the right, as you could judge how far you were from the edge of the road to the right. In some cars, it wasn’t really for the driver’s convenience, as all the shift and brake controls blocked him from even getting out on the right side.
Henry Ford, bless his soul and his idiosyncrasies, for some reason put the steering wheel on the left on Model T of his design (and please note, I did not say “The Model T, if you go back and read period literature, it’s always “Henry introduced Model T”, not “the Model T”, subtle difference but more correct). But, still, you could only exit the front seat of Model T from the right, curb side, there was no door left front. I assisted a curator of a major museum (Peter Jakob, Air and Space) with the acquisition of a wonderful 1914 Model T, and still tease him about the first time he saw the car and reached for a door handle on the left front!
As time passed, manufacturers realized that people preferred the steering wheel on the left, for one reason, to better judge where driver car was in relation to oncoming car.
This is not an authoritative answer, but rather observation from reading and studying early cars for years. Pierce, of course, resisted the change, and I believe it was 1920 or so before PAMCC produced a left hand drive car.
Two other considerations:
1. Before streets were paved, in wet weather one would have to navigate mud to and from the left side of the car parked at the right curb.
2. I’ve read that 1920 was the year of the highest horse population in the United States. Whether the street was dry or muddy, one would have to navigate horse leavings to and from the left side of the car parked at the right curb.
Lest I become too scatological, I will refrain from mentioning the details of the pollution caused by NYC’s 500,000 horse population in 1900. That is rarely considered when discussing auto pollution….
I would also think that with so few paved roads and no run-off, the driver had a better view of where the road ended and the ditch began on the right side, thus increasing safety by not heading into a ditch.
I remember driving my lefthand drive Series 80 down country roads at the Lexington Meet and being worried about those ditches!
I can just imagine what it was like in 1925.
EEK!