Subject: LRO: Which side? (was 2 Land Rover questions)

From: "C. Marin Faure" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 19:22:36 -0700

Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 14:21:35 -0700
From: "Paul Quin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: LRO: Re: RE: Re: 2 Land Rover related questions

> >>Why do the Brit's drive on the left?<<

>> Because it's SAFER ! Research has been done to show that because the

>This is good logic, but you all were driving (horses) on the left a century
before it was necessary to change gears...

Good point.  I did some filming a couple of years ago with a stagecoach and
a full team of horses in eastern Washington.  The driver of a stagecoach
sits on the right, while the relief driver/guard sits on the left.  The big
footbrake is on the right side of the coach.  If you live in a part of the
US where Wells Fargo bank has a presence and runs TV commercials, you can
see this for yourself in the shots featuring the Concord coach they use as
their trademark.  The lighter weight, mountain version of the heavy,
flatland Condord, called a "mud wagon" also seats the driver on the right.

I haven't been observant enough to see if this "driver on the right"
applies to freight wagons and other horse-drawn vehicles in addition to
Concord coaches and mud wagons.  (For anyone really interested in seeing
what a mud wagon looks like, there is one featured in the 1960s movie
"Hombre," starring Paul Newman.  If you have never seen the movie, it's
excellent and is not at all "dated" in style- it could have been made last
week.)

Here's another puzzle, though.  In the US and Canada, railroad engine
drivers sit on the right side of their cabs, and oncoming trains pass (on a
double track mainline) to the left of each other.  Maybe I didn't word that
correctly, but when the trains pass, each driver is on the opposite
(outside) side of their cab from the passing train.  In the UK, I believe,
the driver sits on the LEFT side of the cab, and oncoming trains pass each
other on the RIGHT.

So in the US, we used to drive our wagons from the right side of the
vehicle, we still drive our trains while seated on the right side of the
engine, but we drive our cars while seated on the left side.  In the UK, I
have no idea what side the driver sat on when driving a horse-drawn coach
(I know a lot of their coaches and cabs put the driver in the center), but
they drive their trains while seated on the left side of the engine (I'm
pretty sure), but drive their cars while seated on the right side.

I suspect there's not any big, dramatic reason for any of this.  Perhaps
the reason a driver sits where he does is due more to the original layout
of the vehicle types in question.  Or perhaps someone built a bench-seat
cart to hunt wooly mamoths or Christians with, and happened to stick the
brake or flaggon-holder on whatever side, which meant he had to sit on that
side, too, so that's the way everyone else in town built their carts.

I'll tell you this; a right hand drive Series Land Rover is a hell of a lot
easier to work on than a left-hand drive Land Rover, because the clutch and
brake master cylinders are farther out in the engine bay.  There's none of
this "let's tuck the clutch master up under the left wing and make the poor
sods take the whole damn body off to get at it" sort of thing.  (I built a
hinged hatch in my wing that lets me get at the clutch master very handily,
but not until I'd done the "remove the body" thing once.)

________________________
C. Marin Faure
  (original owner)
  1973 Land Rover Series III-88
  1991 Range Rover Vogue SE
   Seattle, WA