From my knowledge, the UK helped not only its former colonies develop their driving infrastructure, but also countries like Indonesia and Japan, thus them also driving on the left side of the road. Did the US have a bigger influence on Canadian road development than Britain? And if so, why?
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Indonesia and Japan are island nations, which means they don’t have to make their roads link up with their neighbours. (Well, Indonesia has land borders with Papua New Guinea and Malaysia but I think that’s it, and they aren’t very big borders.)
Canada shares a *huge* land border with the US, with lots of car and truck traffic crossing every day. Setting up the infrastructure for roads so that they switch sides at every border crossing, is complicated and expensive. And even if all that infrastructure were implemented well, (which – being real – it probably wouldn’t be) it would still be confusing to many drivers.
Canada became independent from the UK about 20 years before the first car.
where as most of the others became independent long aftet the mass adoption of cars.
there werent really laned roads before cars
> UK helped its former colonies develop their driving infrastructure
They actually didn’t.
All infrastructure made was to ensure efficient looting of resources.
As for Canada, we did drive on the left until we wanted to be similar to the US and Mexico.
Cars weren’t invented until well after Canada became an independent country (1867)… so why would they copy the British on that? It makes much more sense to copy your immediate neighbours to the south, with whom you do a lot of trade, have a massive land border, and probably going to have a lot of cars going between them… both to be sold, and owned and driven by regular citizens. Consistency makes plenty of sense there.
If you look us up on a map, you’ll notice that we are located in North America. Our neighbor to the South has a 10 time our population, everyone there drive on the right and our road networks are connected. Pretty cool right?
You want me to explain like you’re five, there you go. Now go eat your vegetables!
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