Just curious

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1331765]

Comments

[abidemi.livejournal.com]

The free market will make the best choice.

[pyropyga.livejournal.com]

I tried reading a novel where that was actually an explicit part of the ideology in place, and my brain stopped being able to deal about two hundred pages in.

[will-couvillier.livejournal.com]

In some things one should consider uniformity.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

In this matter, I think you may be right.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

Nitpick: by Federal government, you probably mean national government unless you want to exclude countries which aren't set up with a federal system, like the UK (one of the places which seems particularly relevant to this question).

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Bad me. I do indeed mean national and mean no slight to nations that are defectively not set up like Canada.

[montoya.livejournal.com]

I assume that by "The federal government" you meant that the United States would decide for all nations.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

But that is the natural order of the universe . . .

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Everything higher than "federal" is being defined in terms of federal. Therefore, "nation" is, at this time, the highest point at which a political group can be considered to be cohesive for political purposes, and therefore the highest point at which it would be desirable for those contained within to have a consistent travel system.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Once again, "silly" and "conventional" run neck and neck in the polls.

[james-angove.livejournal.com]

I went with federal government, but in truth I'm happy with any level at or above the feds. (Also, I'd consider the UN deciding to be just a special case of the federal government decides).

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask the train of thought that lead to this question? (And on which side track does the train of thought run?)

[timill]

Is it CNW or UP?

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

I said federal government but if I base it on what I see out my kitchen window (one way street) I'd guess that everyone else went with "let individual drivers decide for themselves". So far, no dead that I know about.

[radargrrl.livejournal.com]

Check out these two articles.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

There's a Geneva Convention on Road Traffic?

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

An informed committee of not more than 20 individuals, and not of size 8.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126901.300-explaining-the-curse-of-work.html
(Yes, I know it's New Scientist, but they don't seem to have butchered this piece.)

[dsrtao]

You are lacking two options:

o The Romans
o Napoleon

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Or the Church.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to set up something like that international civil aviation authority HQ'ed in Montréal for this sort of thing. Linked to the UN, but not right there in Turtle Bay.

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

Better would be continent or so wide. Basically where ever a highly interconnected road system existed.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's why I voted for the NAFTA/EU equivalent.

[rotty-0079.livejournal.com]

It's only right that the institution that paid to build the roads make the rules. So posting from America, I voted "the federal government".

Of course, total consistency would require me to assert traffic management on Roman roads was rightfully under the authority of the Emperor in Constantinople until 1453.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

There could be modern oddness as well, if that rule was applied consistently. In response to Pearl Harbor, the US completely paid for the Alaskan-Canadian highway. Fortunately for Canadians, if the US demands that drivers stay to the right even on the Canadian parts of the road, Canadians won't notice. But I suppose the rule means that USA could dictate not only the speed limit on the Alcan highway, but that the speed limit be measured in miles per hour... And I wonder if, as part of World War II and its aftermath, the USA paid for roads in the UK, Japan, and other drive-on-the-left nations? We might be missing out on some really fun bossing around!

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Each country should decide for themselves. Would be good if there was an international standard, but I don't really see any good reason, other than possibly cheaper cars, why frex the UK should have to convert.

(I was tempted to pick "let individual drivers decide for themselves", just for fun, but I'm not really an anarchist!)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

"Have to", no. But now that a Londoner and their car can be in Paris in hours, and vice versa, it's a bigger issue than it was when the number was larger (pre-tunnel). Driving a car on the wrong side, i.e. not the side that car was built to drive on, is somewhat risky and I hear kinda hair-raising as well (I've never done that one; I've driven in three drive-on -the-left countries, but I was driving local cars that were in that regard well-adapted for local conditions).

Sweden drove on the left until 1967, even with land connections to neighboring countries, so apparently it can be done (Britain, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand are all islands, probably not coincidentally).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

In principle I think it'd be best if we all drove on the same side of the road. I think it's a totally arbitrary choice, and there's considerable value to consistency.

I'm not sure it's worth attempting to force countries to change at this late date, however.

There didn't quite seem to be a choice that really represented this attitude.

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Although it is more...calming...to have a single standard, an individual (anarchistic) approach is vastly more entertaining. It also gives much greater authority to those with old, large, heavy cars. :-)

[wayward-va.livejournal.com]

I was so tempted to say 'let individual drivers decide', except evolution probably wouldn't work any faster if we did that than it does already.

[kiya]

It's a conflict. In my heart, I know that everyone should be free of the tyranny of society, but in my car I'm glad we all drive on the same side. --Kip Williams

[oh6.livejournal.com]

"Should" is a tricky word. I think individual drivers should decide for themselves, but this only part of my thinking, which includes that they should be clever enough and far-sighted enough never to get into traffic jams, and not need traffic signals, taillights, or brakes, since if you plan things out properly simple road friction should bring you to a halt at your destination.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom are really "a lesser transsnational organization", but that was the closest option.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

They should all drive on the upper surface. Seriously.

[armb.livejournal.com]

You missed "it should depend on hemisphere, like Coriolis force, such that vortexes created by cars passing in opposite directions are the wrong way around to seed tornadoes".

[(Anonymous)]

My great-grandfather, in the early days of automobiles, opted for "let individual drivers decide". He always drove on the wrong side of the road, arguing that if he was going into the ditch, he was by God going into the ditch he could see out of his window.

Fortunately, this was at a time when most people did not have cars, or natural selection would have done for me long before I was able to do anything about it.

- Ken