John W. wrote:
> necoandjeff wrote:
>> Does anyone know the origin of driving on the left side of the
>> street in Japan? I seem to recall hearing from someone a long time
>> ago (it may have even been my Iaido buddies) that it was actually an
>> established custom long before automobiles, and that passing on the
>> left had to do with drawing one's sword (if you were to pass on the
>> right it would be difficult to draw your sword and strike in the
>> event you are attacked since you draw from left to right.) A friend,
>> on the other hand, seems to think it was a more recent development
>> and had to do with an early association between Japan and British
>> motor car companies. I did a quick Google search and didn't come up
>> with much.
>>
> Did a Yahoo! search for [japan driving on the left why] (no brackets),
> and came up with ample results. The first one I checked out was
> Japan-Guide, which led to http://www.2pass.co.uk/japan.htm. Confirms
> the samurai theory, with some historical notes from folks who
> witnessed the behavior.
>
> I always thought a lot of the automobile and other related engineering
> came from Germany. What I've always found interesting is that people
> tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk, escalators, etc.; I'd
> expect it to parallel driving (for some reason).

Aha. I did my search in Japanese with 左通行の始まり and some variations and
came up with nothing.

What you say is interesting though. My experience is that people in Japan
generally walk and pass on the left too, although there are certainly those
who don't follow suit (basically the same people who stop at the top of the
escalator, stop and stand on the walking side of the escalator or moving
sidewalk, etc., without giving a blankety blank that there are actually
people around them upon whom they are inflecting much meiwaku...)

Jeff