Which Side of the Road Do Vehicles Drive on in the United States?
1 Answers
In the United States, vehicles drive on the right side of the road. Most countries around the world adopt left-hand drive vehicles that drive on the right side. Road traffic direction can be categorized into two types: driving on the left side of the road and driving on the right side of the road. Early automobiles had the driver's seat positioned in the center of the vehicle. Soon after, some automakers placed the driver's seat on the side closer to the road's centerline to better observe oncoming traffic from the opposite direction. Other manufacturers positioned the driver's seat on the roadside side to avoid collisions with obstacles such as walls, hedges, or ditches along the road. Practical experience demonstrated that the former approach was more conducive to maintaining road safety, thus becoming the standard practice for automakers. This led to the distinction between left-hand drive vehicles (with the driver's seat on the left front side) and right-hand drive vehicles (with the driver's seat on the right front side).