Britanic Weights & Meassures Association,

Regarding the confused e-mail you received from Geoff in the Erse Free State, on November 21st @ 11.45 p.m. He raised with you, or attempted to raise in his convoluted way, the fact that the United States of America rides and drives on the starboard/righthand/offside of the highway.

"... and it was the same arrogance that made us drive on the lefthand side of the highway and use miles."

From time immemorial all societies have sailed, driven, and flown on the larboard/port/lefthand/nearside. The sole exception are riverboats which pole, steam, load, and unload from either side.

On land this position was reinforced by most men carrying their sidearms on their lefthand side.

This situation finally came to an end with the development of the pistol, now often called a handgun.

(In the past a handgun was a rifle, shotgun, or pistol. Now the word handgun is just limited to a pistol.)

Women were equally divided between carrying muffpistols and pistols in their handbags. But nearly all men carried pocketpistols in their righthand pocket, because most men were righthanded. Very few men carried vestpistols or holsterpistols.

In the Britanic Islands and elsewhere this had no effect on the highways, byways, roads, streets, despite men being more frequent travellers than women. And the reasons are obvious:

Not only had all the roads/streets been built thousands of years ago, but the families using them were settled families that everyone had known from birth. That meant that the custom and tradition of larboard/port/lefthand/nearside use of the road/street was just too strong to change, just because all men had started to carry their weapon on their righthand side. Particularly so, when the pocketpistol cannot even be seen.

This was exactly the opposite in the U.S. Roads and streets were invariably brand-new creations being initially used by newly settled families who were unfamiliar to other families. Therefore in the U.S. men started to use the righthand/offside of the road/street to protect their access to their righthand pocketpistol, and women and children were forced to follow.

Despite this, U.S. horses have continued to this day to be mounted by white men from the lefthand/nearside, even though they are now ridden on the righthand/offside of the U.S. road/street.

It can only remain speculation as to what would have happened in 1900 if somehow the U.S. was still walking, riding, and driving on the lefthand/nearside of the road/street. For it was then that the automobile was introduced, and many roads were turned into streets.

Just like U.S. coaches and wagons, the steering position on U.S. automobiles was placed on the lefthand/nearside. But since there was no need to have constant and instant access to the horses, the automobile operator could not only be well protected, he could even be completely enclosed with a full door next to his lefthand/nearside.

The U.S. automobile's full door made no difference at all, because the operator still had easy access to his righthand pocketpistol.

This was completely different in the U.K. where the introduction of the U.K. automobile's full door for the operator, immediately trapped the operator's righthand pocketpistol.

Of course in both the U.S. and the U.K. the armored/armed cocoon of the automobile instilled a greater feeling of safety amongst automobile operators, which in turn led to tendency to leave handguns at home, if not in the pistolbox/glovebox. However this tendency was noted at the time to be far greater in the U.K. than in the U.S.

Some claim that this was because U.K. automobiles were built to much higher safety standards that the U.S. auto. This is complete nonsense. For more than half a century no one anywhere payed any attention to safety standards. And when safety was finally introduced, it was introduced in the U.S. in the 1960s before anywhere else in the world.

The reason why U.K. automobile operators stopped carrying handguns was that the U.K. automobile's full door was just too great an inconvenience to overcome.

Of course walkers and riders continued to carry handguns. Although automobile operators are usually considered to be higher social class than walkers or riders, armed men are usually considered to be higher social class than unarmed men.

This created a very interesting social situation in the U.K. A high-class social group deliberately taking an action that made it low-class. Clearly it was a situation that could not last. Either U.K. automobile operators had to make themselves high-class again (doors or no doors), or they had to force others to become low-class like themselves.

U.K. automobile operators did this in the 1920s and 1930s, by first stripping firearm regulations enforcement from peace justices, post office masters, and excise agents, and handing them over to the unaccountable county-constabulary/town-police. (Elections of sheriffs and constables had been abolished in 1872.) This of course, had no effect. But it was the second step that explained the first step.

U.K. automobile operators forced through reams of utterly unenforceable firearms legislation, the largest in the world until the rise of Nationalist Socialist Peoples' Labor Party Germany. But attached to all this legislation for the county-constabulary/town-police was the unheard of power to search without warrant, persons who had NOT committed any offence or breach of the peace. Furthermore there was a suspension of the law of theft and county-constabulary/town-police were given the power to seize personal property (firearms), NOT required for production before the grand jury. This enabled county-constabulary/town-police to go fishing, and conduct warrantless searches of all walkers and riders they came across upon the U.K. road/street. Needless to say, U.K. automobile operators continued to be completely immune from county-constabulary/town-police attention, as a search warrant sworn out before a peace justice continued to be required, before any automobile/house could be entered and searched.

They got away with it for years, but now the result is finally in. In 2001, car-jacking at gunpoint was reported by the U.K. regime as the fastest rising violent crime in the Southern U.K. Who says there is no such thing as poetic justice.

If the U.S. had retained the thousands of years of custom of using the lefthand/nearside of the road, would U.S. natives still have the right of the england subject of the crown to keep and bear arms? We will never know.

More info? See site:

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

And topic:

Common Bullet, Buckshot, & Birdshot Gage

Note 1. Napoleon Emperor's Republic of Europe forced all N.E.R.E. Europe to use the righthand/offside of the road/street. They actually believed that driving on the righthand/offside of the road/street was somehow "republican" because the U.S. did it. I would sure like to know how having emperors and popes and dictators and pontiffs and kings and socialism all over the place is "republican". But common sense has never existed in Europistland.

Note 2. All american plains indians have always mounted their horses from the righthand/offside. No explanation has ever been found for this.

Note 3. The first gun-ban in the world was passed in the U.S. in the 1920s by the Smith & Wesson pistol manufacturing company. They manufactured the biggest selling gun in the world, called the "Lady Cyclist Protector". It was a small revolver specifically targeted at housewives going shopping for their families. The Daughters of the American Revolution bitterly complained that this ladies gun was the favourite pistol of Negro, Mexican, and Irish "dance-hall girls", and that this was making the american public think they were ladies. It was obviously of no consequence that this gun was the best, and often only, protection that these impoverished prostitutes had from enforcement prostitution, rape, and even worse. What did Smith & Wesson do? It banned the manufacture of the gun, and even broke up those it was about to send out to customers and dealers. Guess what? The National Rifle Association of America actually complimented Smith & Wesson on its' action. Thankfully by 2003, common sense has finally been kicked into these two organizations. In addition to its' vast 2003 pistol range for everyone, Smith & Wesson has targeted 13 pistols specifically for women this year, whether "Negro or Mexican or Irish dance-hall girl" or not. And the NRA now stands ready to defend the constitutional rights of all, that's "all" U.S. natives, whether rich or poor, as many a legislative politician, judicial politician, and executive politician across this land has found out to their personal cost.

There are many claims and counter-claims as why we drive on the left or right side of the road in different countries. I think some of the reasons may well be lost in the mists of time by now.

There are also plenty of anomolies which indicate remnants of history. For example, everybody knows that in the U.S. traffic drives on the right, however LEFT-hand driving is the rule in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

There's an interesting article here:

http://www.travel-library.com/general/driving/drive_which_side.html

Paul,

You are relatively new to this bulletin board. Everybody generally ignores XCole.

"however LEFT-hand driving is the rule in the U.S. Virgin Islands"

well i didn't know that!

Goes to show that you learn something new every day.

I would assume all carribean islands drive on the left - but I'm not sure.

And I'm off to the carribean this coming Saturday! 85 in the shade? Luuuuurvly!

Please check out the petrol/gas stations, shops, etc for measurement usage and report your findings.

"You are relatively new to this bulletin board. Everybody generally ignores XCole."

Hmm... O.K. I've had a look back at some earlier posts and see what you're getting at!

"I would assume all carribean islands drive on the left - but I'm not sure."

Most of them seem to, including all the British-influenced islands such as Bermuda, Dominica, etc. just as you would expect. The French island (Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc.) drive on the right, also as you would expect!

There's a full list at the above link.

Where abouts are you going? Not that I'm envious you understand, as I sit here looking out on a wet, gray, miserable Sunday evening..... ;)

Othercountries that drive on the left include Mozambique (a former Portugeuse colony) - due to the SOuth African influence (?). BTW Angola, another ex-Portugeuse colony drives on the right.

Almost all of SE Asia drives on the left including Indonesia (a former Dutch colony). I am not too sure why though - it might have been the British colonial influence or the Japanese influence.

It is barbados I am off to.

In precisely 5 days time.

That's "precisely" 5 days.

Soon I shall be working out the exact hours left to go.