Eli5 why driving on one side of a car is more practical than driving in the middle of one. Surely, the middle gives you better spacial awareness but things like the Monza SP1 exist and you still sit on one side of the vehicle
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The simplist answer I guess is from a driving perspective it isn’t. You are exactly right being in the middle of the car would be the ideal for spacial awareness.
However, think about the size of a car. Putting a single seat in the middle reduces the amount of people it could carry. So is an inefficient use of space.
When you are driving on a road with other people, awareness about oncoming traffic is more important than about immovable objects or people moving together with you. Relative speeds are much higher, and so is the danger of collision and disruption if collision is avoided. Sitting in the middle is only viable for pure racecars that are never meant to get into traffic, like F1 bolids.
Or Mclaren F1 and Speedtail, they actually solved issue in supercars by doing that
>The main reason for the car’s iconic center driver’s seat wasn’t to make the driver feel special (though that was certainly a part of it). In truth, it eliminates the offset pedal box that forced so many drivers of other supercars to sit slightly crooked in the car.
[ A link to qoute. ](https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/classic-cars/a12019673/mclaren-f1-center-seating-position/)
There is at least one thing when sitting on the side is better for driving when you overtake another vehicle.
Sitting on the edge of the car at the center of the road results in you seeing longer past a vehicle in front of you. You alos need to expose less of the car to oncoming traffic before not traffic is blocked by the vehicle in front. It might not be that relevant if you overtake a car but if it is a truck it will block a lot ahead.
Sitting in the middle of the car gives you the same amount of visibility towards both sides but I am not sure that is a huge advantage. If you drive a car having better visibility on toward the center of the road is in my experience better. There is a lot more situation when you car what is on that side of the car directly beside, behind, or in front compared to the other side.
Regardless of the visibility, the main reason is what is mentioned in other posts, you fit two individuals in the front row of a car. There is one problem with this argument, trucks and other larger vehicles. They are also controlled from one side even when they are and have three sets side by side. Even on them sitting on one side give you good visibility on one side compared to a more equal on two sides. It might be a holdover from not as wide older trucks and cars but I do not think that is the case.
Also, when making an “inside” turn, you get better visibility through the turn. For example, when driving in the US on the right side of the road, and turning right into the near right lane. Your position on the left of the car means your eyes are on the outside of that turn, seeing the crossroad better, earlier in the turn (and before you put more of the car into that crossroad).
If you were seated in the middle of the car, your vision of the traffic in that lane, as you make the turn, would be a little bit less.
I noticed this when I traveled to England & Ireland a couple of years ago, and drove on the left side of the road, from the seat on the right side of the car.
I don’t have all the answers but I can tell you that the Monza SP1 exists the way it does because it shares the same production process as the Monza SP2, the two seater option. Everything about the two cars is identical except for the fact that in the SP1 the passenger seat is removed and a body panel covers the empty space. Source: the recent Doug DeMuro video in which he finds a fully leather stitched glove box, climate vents, and door handle on the passenger side under the panel.
As people pointed out, there is the visibility part.
There is also the design part. Centered seat means centered commands too.
On a front engined, front wheel car, this is already a problem: there is the engine where you want to fit the steering column.
On a front engined, rear wheel drive, you would be sitting on the gearbox, and there is the engine here too.
Driving in the middle is only really possible when the engine is in the rear.
Also visibility for changing lanes and backing out of parking spaces. A middle seat increases your blind spots behind you. It’s also easier to get in and out if you don’t have to get over or through a bunch of car to get to your seat. You can also still signal with your arm out the window if your signal lights stop functioning.
It might feel more symmetrical sitting in the middle, but I think spatial awareness differences would be negligible in most regular driving situations.
We brought a German car to Ireland, so had to drive on the “wrong side” of the road. Overtaking becomes pretty much impossible in that scenario, you can’t see shit. Even if you were sitting in the middle, you’d have less vision of what’s happening ahead. So while there might be an argument for it with formula 1 cars or some such where weight distribution is crucial, in an everyday car, that small benefit would not outweigh the safety aspect.
In America, you drive on the right side of the road, and the driver is on the left side of the car. This way, you are more aware of the vehicles coming toward you than if you were on the other side or middle of the vehicle. After all, it’s better for a car going 25 miles per hour to hit a stationary mailbox than it is for two cars going 25 to impact, thereby increasing the force to the equivalent of 50.
Not only that, but there are things that need to be done that cannot be done easily if you are too far away from the windows, such as asking for directions, retrieving things from drive-throughs, and checking blind spots.
It should be noted that mailpersons’ vehicles have the steering wheels on the right side of the cars because it simply wouldn’t be sensible for them to cross over to the left side of the road, or reach over the entire width of the car, to put mail in mailboxes.
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