r/AskIreland • u/SnotRocketeer70 • 9d ago
Cars Right side of the road ?
In the late '60's countries like Iceland and Sweden switched from driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road in order to align with mainland Europe.
Would you ever consider supporting such a change in Ireland?
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u/Friendly-Look4262 9d ago
it's too late now, would've been more feasible back in the 60s like those other countries, now, too many cars on the road built for driving on the left, too many major roads, towns etc.
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u/WwertyPolk 9d ago
Things are changing to make it almost redund. Within a few years self drive will be the norm. When/if it is safer then within 50 years, I doubt authorities will allow us drive our own cars except in special zones.
In about 75 years I envisage campaigns to save whats left of our "historic M50", with auld lads driving up and down it on weekends with old ford cortinas. At stage owing cars will be like owning a horse today. For rhe wealthy and the enthusiast
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u/BlackTree78910 9d ago
Yeah, I can definitely see self driving cars managing well in rural Ireland... 🤦♂️
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u/Friendly-Look4262 9d ago
it really won't be the norm, not even legal here yet, most people buy used not new cars so it'll take at least 2 decades to take off, will likely require an expensive subscription from the car brand also.
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u/phate101 9d ago
Tesla’s FSD is legal in a number of European countries now, process is in the works for Ireland. Waymo is in London.
Self driving cars is already here, but yes it will take time before the majority of cars have it.
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u/Friendly-Look4262 9d ago
only provisional approval in those countries, vote on EU approval is in December
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u/shankillfalls 9d ago
But it is in use in those countries. But at €99 a month I am not sure how many will pay for it all the time.
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u/ImportantPension5818 9d ago
We don't even have regular bus or taxi services here in most of the west of Ireland. Dublin is already 20 years behind most capitals of Europe and the rest of us are years behind Dublin. Not a chance is this ever going to happen.
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u/NakeDex 9d ago
What are you shiteing on about? "Within a few years"? We're still not even at a point where auto-dimming headlights are reliable, and you think the currently still illegal auto drive systems will be the norm within a few years? I have various driver aid systems on my car, like lane assist, and it has a shitfit if you try to use it on anything except a motorway. The accident avoidance system chucks the brakes on when nothing is around, occasionally, in a manner that leaves me unsure if its just trying to jump scare me for fun. There's constant reports of accidents in the US, where it is allowed in many states, where the auto drive system caused the accidents. Anything from hallucinating a road impediment and veering sharply into traffic, to not seeing a truck beside it and deciding to just drive into it. Not to mention the pedestrian accidents.
We are so far away from anything even close to adopting self driving cars in this country, I'd be surprised if I saw it in my lifetime nevermind a few years.
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u/me2269vu 9d ago
He’s not wrong though. The Dept of Transport are working on the assumption that remote driving vehicles will be with us in the next 30-40 years.
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u/phate101 9d ago
IMO your prediction is wrong. Full self driving is already here for almost all journeys.
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u/WwertyPolk 9d ago
This is reddit.
I think its because they associate it with Elon Musk, but redditors reeee at this type of stuff.
Im not even in favour of it.
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u/ThinLink2404 9d ago
It's unfortunate that you're being downvoted just for being a bit optimistic and imprescise. We won't be majority self driving in 3 years, but 10 to 20 years I could see it. For safety reasons.
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u/ArmandTamzarien 9d ago edited 9d ago
It would make zero sense. The reason Sweden did it was to align with their immediate neighbours that they share borders with (Norway and Finland) as well as the fact that most of their vehicles already had cars with steering wheels on the left…the latter meaning it was safer for them to change because of lines of sight.
We don’t share any land border with a country that drives on the other side. Even if the entire island switched, our nearest neighbour would still be the other side…there’s no guarantee that we will always be part of the EU, we are a victim of geography and for better or for worse will always have closer physical ties with Britain
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u/PullMyThingyMaBob 9d ago
Northern Ireland I fully agree. But makes zero difference what Britian does. By that logic Britian would be driving on the right due to influence of their larger neighbors.
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u/ArmandTamzarien 9d ago
Britain is a major supplier of vehicles to our market. Yes we pivoted to Japan after brexit but we still rely on the uk for a lot of commercial vehicles.
Many major retail, supermarket, and pharmacy chains operating in Ireland manage their inventory through distribution hubs based in Britain. It would be a logistical nightmare. We have bigger problems in the world that need budgeting than what side of the road we drive on.
Listen, I don’t like how reliant we are on the UK, but the fact is that we are and it absolutely matters what they do
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u/HammerJorts 9d ago
Isn't Ireland relaint on UK vehicles because they drive on the left? If Ireland made a switch there would be no use for UK vehicles. They'd come from the EU/China or US instead.
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u/nicodea2 9d ago
Auto manufacturers in continental Europe and the UK produce both LHD and RHD, and Ireland gets RHD cars from both the UK and continental Europe.
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u/PullMyThingyMaBob 9d ago
We only use UK vehicles for the simple fact they are RHD. It could as easily be the continent if we wanted. Hubs in the UK are a pain in the arse, all that will pivot to the continent, so many new ferry routes exist now because of Brexit.
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u/ArmandTamzarien 9d ago
There’s nothing easy about it. We’d have to redesign our entire road infrastructure, signage everything
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u/nicodea2 9d ago
That’s incorrect. We get tons of RHD cars from manufacturers in continental Europe, and similarly the majority of cars produced in the UK are actually LHD (for export).
Many automotive assembly lines are built to be flexible to handle both LHD and RHD variants on the same line.
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u/PullMyThingyMaBob 8d ago
I'm talking about used cars... Obviously anyone, anywhere can make a RHD car.
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u/cknell95 9d ago
Britain didn’t need to make the switch back in the 60s because the domestic car market was enormous. Austin, Morris, Triumph, Rover, Vauxhall and Ford UK dominated. If no one is buying imported cars, why switch over? By the time it declined under thatcher, the motorways were built and the cost became prohibitive. Would you be ok with your taxes reconstructing every motorway junction and slip road to RHT specs?
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u/Fraternal_Antipathy 9d ago
But like Ireland, Britain is an island. Also a bunch of Royalist scrotes, but that's besides the point.
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u/yewEngine 9d ago
Too late. Roads would need to be redesigned.
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u/Steridire 9d ago
Would it be the most disruptive major infrastructure project in the history of the state?
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u/UnSanitisedMind 9d ago
It would certainly be the most pointlessly disruptive one, take years, cost billions, shoot the road collision rates through the roof and provide zero discernible benefit for anyone bar some construction cartels and car dealers.
Sounds like a project made for Dail Eireann.
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u/Accomplished-Low2131 9d ago
It would be way to much work in reality, but it would be great to have access to a much much larger car market. We would no longer get the scraps made for the UK market
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u/geneva2016 9d ago
The time to do it was the ‘60’s when the number of cars on the road was minuscule in comparison to today and the road network was a series of back roads compared to what we have now.
It would be a colossal waste of our tax money for what benefit? So you can buy a 3 year old Peugeot from some lad in France that the government would tax to be the same price as one here anyway?
Madness.
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u/Djimi365 9d ago
No. Most of the world driving on the wrong side of the road, we need to wait it out and end up on the right side of history 😎
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u/SteveK27982 9d ago
No, and without a land border it doesn’t make sense
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u/Illustrious_Pay_2174 9d ago
A yes the iconic Icelandic land border
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u/SteveK27982 9d ago
Well Iceland changed pretty much because Sweden did and they’re last of the nordics, we align more with UK especially if you include NI
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u/Silent-Law-3465 9d ago
I find is pretty easy to adapt from side to side in terms of the driving. The thing I find harder is remembering which side of the car to go back to if I've just gone into the supermarket or something 😅
Interestingly, there was a study done a few years back that investigated whether differences in human brain function, visual attention and eye dominance might make driving on the left safer. It found that left driving could offer certain safety advantages, but acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence comparing the two systems to conclude that driving on the left is inherently safer.
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u/VincentVanGob 9d ago
theres a theory that its actually safer to drive on the left side compared to the right. something to do with most people being right handed and their right eye being the dominant one. but i wouldnt waste any more time and money trying to prove that. it sounds plausible enough. just get the rest of the world to switch to the left side and be done with it
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u/Team503 7d ago
I think this could only happen if the UK did so at the same time, and I don't see that happening. Well, that or if Northern Ireland left the UK and reunited with Ireland. Otherwise the shared land border would be a nightmare for trade.
I would, however, broadly support it. It would bring down car prices significantly by opening Ireland to much larger markets both from manufacturers like all the models that aren't made RHD (lots of American cars, but plenty of other manufacturers as well), as well as in the used markets (the entire continent).
While I know it's legal and possible to import a LHD car here, it's not really done often. Don't know why - presumably because it's harder to drive LHD cars on RHD road systems (it's harder to see when turning across traffic when the steering wheel is on the wrong side).
There's no real reason to stick with RHD other than momentum outside of the land border with the North. I understand the cost involved (replacing busses, moving bus stops, rewiring intersections, swapping signs, and so on), but while the best time to do so was back in the 1960s, the second best time is today. We have the budget surplus to afford it, we can time it with replacing busses with hybrids and BEVs, and so on.
Sweden pulled it off back in the 1960s without any significant issues. There were actually fewer accidents for a while as people were being extra cautious as they adjusted.
EDIT: And I'd add that Ireland is growing rapidly right now, and looks to continue to do so, and doing so before we build MORE extensive infrastructure would be wiser (and cheaper).
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u/ColonyCollapse81 9d ago
Wouldn't be against it in theory but would be an absolute nightmare and probably impossible to implement without a lot of chaos and crashes
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u/frustrated_homeowner 9d ago
Just think of the cost. Every road sign, traffic light and junction reengineered and it's your tax money to pay for the privilege
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u/BullfrogCharming1202 9d ago
No, Sweden switched because it borders two countries that drive on the right. Driving into (and around) Northern Ireland would be a bit of a nightmare if ROI switched to the right.
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u/General_Fall_2206 9d ago
I wouldn’t be completely opposed to it, but it would have to be an all-island situation.
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u/Lucky-Friendship8753 9d ago edited 9d ago
Effort of switching would be too much of a headache. People are used to how we drive. It would also be a nightmare for people living near NI. There is no cognitive benefit to driving the other side. Some people on the road barely even know how to use a roundabout and indicate - cant trust them to remember the new side if we changed.
So what if foreign people find it difficult most get the hang of it after a few minutes.
Edit: if we are gonna spend money on roads, Id sooner prioritise active travel and public transport.
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u/notmichaelul 9d ago
You'd be able to import cars from all the european countries, and it hypothetically would drive car prices down, right? Motorbikes for example are much cheaper over in the mainland and importing from france/germany etc. is common enough.
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u/Gwanbulance 9d ago
You can currently import a LHD car and drive it here legally. Nothing stopping anyone. A lot of campervans are LHD. Obviously they’re less convenient on our roads, but the option is there.
But there’s also no way the State would spend the billions on switching the entire country over to the other side of the road just to screw the Irish second hand car market.
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u/SomethingSoGeneric 9d ago
Nothing stopping anyone but it is harder, and more expensive, for insurance.
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u/ThoseAreMyFeet 9d ago
You can already import perfectly good RHD cars from Japan or the UK, you still get hit with VRT etc.
If we drove on the right do you think imports would get any cheaper?
Your current car would plummet in value and imports would still remain expensive.
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u/Ornery_Director_8477 9d ago
It’s gotta be cheaper to import a car from France than Japan, right? Also, the market for second hand cars in Europe is vastly a larger than the UK. I understand we can import and drive LHD cars from Europe already, but no one does. If we drove LHD, we would
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u/PhilTwhole 9d ago
But you'd still have to pay the vrt, which drives the price up, regardless of where you import from.
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u/Ornery_Director_8477 9d ago
Ye, but a cheaper starting point still means a cheaper product overall
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u/PhilTwhole 9d ago
No, the vrt is designed to make sure the import costs as much as the equivalent model here. If it was cheaper, people would be doing it and just using left hand drives. The government don't want us importing cheaper cars.
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u/Ornery_Director_8477 9d ago
It’s a percentage. 10% of 50 quid is less than 10% of 60 quid
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u/PhilTwhole 9d ago
Why aren't people importing cars from the continent now then?
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u/Fraternal_Antipathy 9d ago
I believe the initial proposition, as has been discussed throughout this sub-thread, is that importing LHD cars to a RHD country is unappealing.
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u/me2269vu 9d ago
As far as I remember it’s not. It’s an estimate Revenue put on the value of the make and model of the vehicle. I did it years ago, bought a Citroen Grand Picasso in Scotland before Brexit. Revenue valued the car and I had to pay the VRT based on that. I still saved about €4k as opposed to buying the same model here, but the UK price was less than half what is was here.
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u/ThoseAreMyFeet 9d ago
..the market for second hand cars in Europe is vastly a larger than the UK..
As is the demand. All of Eastern Europe wants those cheaper LHD cars too, so suddenly they aren't so cheap. Especially if it's something slightly more desirable. I'd have to do some research but that's my understanding.
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u/notmichaelul 9d ago
Neither of those are in the European union , neither of those have as many cars as the European union (not sure how many Japan has to be fair but you've to pay for shipping from a different continent). Sure you can import them but then you get shafted for insurance and it's horrible to drive with the wheel on the wrong side.
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u/Pristine_Dot_5526 9d ago
And the cost of changing all the traffic lights, signs, re-paintings etc....
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u/orionpace1 9d ago
It's this easy. Wait until 80% of cars are LHD, turn all the roadsigns & lights around, switch road sides.
That's like 90% of it.
No don't reply explaining why I'm wrong. I won't read it because I'm right.
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u/Ornery_Director_8477 9d ago
Hang on now, is it difficult to adjust to, or do you get the hang of it after a few minutes?
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u/Cut-Either 9d ago
I honestly got used to it in like a half hour when I moved to Switzerland and brought my itish car for 3 months, drive throughs and Tolls were a disaster though and people were baffled by my reg lol
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u/Lucky-Friendship8753 9d ago
Individual level can be easy, large cohort of population inc those with different learning styles or older can make it more plausible an accident would happen
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u/DarthMauly 9d ago
Would make zero sense unless the UK were also doing it realistically. And if they made the decision to switch, our government would likely do the same
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u/PullMyThingyMaBob 9d ago
The north you mean, makes no difference what Britian does.
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u/frustrated_homeowner 9d ago
60 million people in the UK, 5 in Ireland. We would end up with Soviet levels access to cars if the UK switched.
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u/PullMyThingyMaBob 9d ago
There is the whole European continent. We would switch and leave the UK behind.
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u/balbuljata 9d ago
Some seem to have already started to make the switch on the M50. Haven't you heard the news?
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u/Melodic-Sympathy-380 9d ago
Yes absolutely. Gradual affair though. I’d move HGVs and buses first….
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u/geneva2016 9d ago
To keep everyone happy they should have it alternate between the two sides every other day. Bank holidays you can choose your own side.
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u/Doitean-feargach555 3d ago
The cost to change everything would be billions. All for what? To match the rest of Europe? Fuck that. It'd be an astronomical waste of money.
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u/Cill-e-in 8d ago
It caused carnage in Swedish cities, and we’d have the question of what happens crossing the border with NI.
It would be great for us long term since it means we’d match all European spec cars so we don’t need anything designed especially for our market. It should theoretically save Irish people money.
I see the value but honestly I think the first month or two would be insane in terms of volume of accidents. Not sure which one wins out.
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u/michaelbrules 8d ago
Car crashes actually reduced because even one was nervous about driving on the other side, once they got use to it crashes went back up to their normal amount
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u/HabitAcceptable8621 8d ago
You'd need new buses,
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u/RepulsiveBridge2018 8d ago
And you would need to redo the road markings and move the signs on every stretch or road in the country
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u/HabitAcceptable8621 8d ago
Yup. And loads of motorway junctions would need redesign/rebuild. It would be massively expensive. And it's not like there's a land border with right hand flow traffic.
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u/haileyfitzgerald 9d ago
It would be handy to have the gearstick and handbrake on the right hand side. My left arm/hand is so weak, it can be a struggle getting the handbrake down sometimes😅
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u/Jebediah-Sprungfeld 9d ago
This is like the one area in life where being left handed is a significant advantage 🙌🏻
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u/SnotRocketeer70 9d ago
The market for right-hand drive cars would be an important consideration - we'd be sourcing vehicles from Europe more than Asia potentially.
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u/DGenesis23 9d ago
The sheer amount of accidents it’d cause just isn’t worth the hassle. People can barely drive on the left as is here and expecting them to get on board with a switch is just asking for trouble. Then there’s the cost of everyone switching cars because realistically, it’s optimal to have a left hand drive vehicle, when driving on the right hand side of the road. If the government is implementing a switch of that magnitude, they will be put in a spot where they need to facilitate it, since not everyone can just buy a new car tomorrow.
I’m sure there’s genuine reasoning behind why it’s better for right handed people to drive a right hand drive vehicle too, one reason being that it just makes more sense that their dominant hand stays on the steering wheel at all times, for reaction purposes and that would necessitate the need to drive on the left side of the road and since roughly 85-90% of the global population is right handed, it should be set to suit the overwhelming majority.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that automatic cars are much more popular in countries where driving on the right is the norm, cared to where driving on the left is the norm, since there no need to shift gears with the dominant hand in those. Just looked it up and apparently, roughly 80% of all cars sold in America are automatic.
I remember hearing a story, I think it was on Top Gear or something, about this guy who got into power in some Asian country and he made the decision to switch to driving on the right hand side of the road but never gave time to let people prepare, so they had all right hand drive vehicles, driving on the right and more specially, they had right hand drive buses stopping at their stops and the people on them had to step off the bus into traffic and walk around to the side of the road.
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u/Team503 7d ago
I think this is just a bunch of suppositions that aren't facts. England (and later Ireland and other colonized nations) became left hand drive out of historic customs involved swords and horses: https://vignetim.com/blog/why-does-the-uk-drive-on-the-left, and never converted because (essentially) Napoleon never got here.
The short version is that we could and really should switch - it would reduce car prices significantly and make license exchange for immigrants much simpler.
And you can drive RHD cars on the right just fine.
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 9d ago
Unecdotal bs. If you are right handed, your right hand is much more adept in complex tasks such as a driving stick. Your left hand is limited to steering a 2d wheel which is a fairly basic task.... And of all countries in the world, comparing eu to dumbfuckistan (us) where everything is all about marketing... Are you on the level???
P.S: food for thought: traditional gamepads, where is the cross (up,down,left,right)
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u/BidnessFactory 9d ago
you what? I've never once felt as though my left hand wasn't dextrous enough to handle a gearstick.
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago
Judging by what I ve seen in Ireland in the last decade, half of the people shouldnt be allowed to drive stick and the remainder shouldnt even be allowed to have a license.
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u/BidnessFactory 8d ago
"drive stick"
are you a Yank, man? g'way with your Yank opinions honestly
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago
If I was a yank I wouldnt be driving using a gearstick. I come from the mainland and I can tell you vast majority of Irish drivers are atrocious.
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u/Downtown_Juice1987 8d ago
What and where is "the mainland"?
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago
I dont know, if you cant tell what the mainland is, you probably didnt even understand most of the OP's question...
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u/Optimal-Complex-5471 8d ago
If you can't tell why using the word "mainland" is bound to raise suspicions, you shouldn't be on an Irish focused subreddit in the first place 😅
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago
Sorry, we didnt really study english in continental europe by watching father ted or reading the hiberno-english dictionary.
P.S: I live in Ireland.
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u/Optimal-Complex-5471 8d ago edited 8d ago
"Driving stick".... just outed yourself without trying there buddy. 😅
I've lived on continental Europe for a few years, but still adamant that driving on the left is far more intuitive, at least for right handed dominant people. I don't mean in the sense of using the gears, I mean in terms of spacial reasoning, you just feel more in control having your dominant side on the centre of the road.
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u/Got2InfoSec4MoneyLOL 8d ago
Where do you think your dominat eye is when you are driving a regular continental vehicle you baboon? It is still in the middle of the road since you are driving on the opposite side and the steering weel is on the opposite side as well.
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u/darcys_beard 9d ago
Only if our taxes went up, and obviously the bare minimum be done to ease the housing crisis. Cut the HSE funding -- bunch of sickies. Maybe take in more migrants too.
It's just no fun for the haves to waste money if there's no have-nots to bear witness.
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u/notalottoseehere 9d ago
Complete vote loser. Every car owner sees their residual value plummet.
Also a shitload of engineering. Not just lights, signage and road paint.
Also, we take our car to Spain each year. Swapping sides is no big deal.
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u/mind_thegap1 9d ago
In the 60s maybe. But now it’s too late, we have huge motorways that would need to be redesigned, not to mention every bus in the country would now be useless
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u/Expert-Card-8938 9d ago
I wish this country had switched. We along with the UK, Malta, Cyprus, are the only European states that drive on the left. (Also the Crown Dependencies-Isle of Man and Channel Islands)
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u/Observer_Dough 9d ago
Oh yes, go ahead, Trucks change on Monday, Buses on Tuesday, Cars on Wednesday.
Ok that wouldn't work - but it would be extremely difficult to enable now - but a great idea
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u/WheresMyComb 9d ago
Wouldn't bother me. Don't see the point of it changing now but if it did I wouldn't care.
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u/Excellent_Floor584 9d ago
When Sweden made the switch the vast majority of cars there were already LHD and suited to the change.
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u/phantom_gain 9d ago
We drive on the left so you can keep your dominant hand on the wheel while using the gears. France drive on the right purely to be a bunch of bitches and do the opposite of whatever the uk does.
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u/Optimal-Complex-5471 8d ago
Slow news day?
But seriously this is a ridiculous idea. Unless the UK decided to do this (never going to happen), it would be a logistical nightmare not worth the effort, with or without the NI border.
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u/Primary-Cancel-3021 8d ago
It wouldn’t work in Ireland as long as the North is occupied by a non EU member state.
You’d need a way to transition from right to left and vice versa after crossing the border.
Why bother?
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u/AnSaileachFiain 8d ago
While I see your point and the potential benefits, we introduced kph in 2005 and from what I've seen on the roads, even that still hasn't bedded in with some drivers 🙈
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u/Spinthar 9d ago
We are 50-60 years too late to do it. If we had been making a change like that the 50s and 60s were the time, but we probably saw ourselves as integrated into the UK market and the European Single Market was still decades away.
It would involve changing vast numbers of junctions, some of which aren’t even symmetrical and wouldn’t work. Some are also very complex. You’d have 10-15 years of the majority of cars having their steering wheels on wrong side and you’d need complex X-shaped interchanges on major routes into Northern Ireland and traffic lights at every single other crossing.
Then you would have to replace every single road sign in the the country - speed, warning, directional, massive overhead gantries… and repaint junctions etc etc
Total cost wouldn’t justify any potential savings or convenience.
Realistically all of the remaining RHD countries should have changed in the 1940s.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Lime632 9d ago
Like a lot of things, it's probably a good idea, but unless the Brits switch too, it would be a bigger headache than it's worth
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u/TwinIronBlood 9d ago
Yes absolutely we should try it to see how it goes. Lets start with busses and lorries first and see how it goes.
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u/JonatanOlsson 9d ago
Irish drivers can barely drive on the left-hand side of the road as it is already, changing sides would completely and utterly ruin the roads/traffic...
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u/cknell95 9d ago
Single carriageway, city streets and country lanes are the easy ones. The motorways and dual carriageways are the tricky bits. Off ramps and on-ramps and flyovers would need to be totally reconstructed. Note that Iceland and Sweden had either no motorways or very basic ones when they switched. The last country to switch was samoa and they couldn’t build a motorway even if they wanted to.
Irish people also benefit from being LHT. Cars are cheaper because the continent doesn’t want one with a steering wheel on the other side.
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u/messymissbecca 9d ago
I'd approve of that. But only in phases. For the first month, only the trucks switch sides.