On September 3, 1967, Sweden switched to driving on the right side of the road, to align their traffic standards with everyone else.
Looking at how many countries around the UK and Ireland actually drive on the right side of the road, it really is astounding to me, these two countries never thought of following the common standard.
1/ I remember one day when I arrived at Shannon Airport with a friend. It had been a long day before, and I had driven to Frankfurt-Hahn Airport in Germany, and was correspondingly tired. I managed to stay awake during the flight, but when I arrived in Shannon I was exhausted. Then we had such a small shopping-trolley-car to borrow. At 1.93, I had to sit on the back seat in order to be able to sit at all and sat in the middle, so to speak, with the best view of the outside.
@andy it certainly matters to car manufacturers. Just ask British consumers why they often get a smaller glove box, and sometimes cannot buy certain models.
It also matters to tourism. A german driving a mobile home to Jutland is one thing, but crossing the channel is a whole other ballgame.
i think the globe underwent many sudden changes in trade-zone agreements after 1945.
the history e.g. of european union is long and complex, but in simplistic terms, many british commonwealth countries/ former colonies were still newly emerging as manufacturing areas.
technology was designed to be written off/ depreciated over long periods (we did not have access to large markets or large sales volumes to develop rapidly or with frequent re-invention)
britain had little to gain by changing after 1945 as it was still an empire (though rapidly shrinking)
the point of capitalism is profit maximisation and the corollary is cost minimisation. innovation/ improvements have no value unless they generate profits
so in australia e.g. most cars were initially british, and when we started making our own, many of the parts were interchangeable from one model to the next… and we would marvel to learn cars in New Zealand in 1970s were often 20 or 30 years old when at the same time the average US car had a life span of 3 years or something … for the global south the challenges must have been enormous, colonies only set up to be exploited rather than developed etc
it took massive structural adjustment even in australia after britain first joined the european community. but also, things like the sale of books were divided up into global markets (there were no US publications freely available here til ??1970s - sometimes i invent facts, so please don’t quote me).
so, probably not so much of a refusal to change as practicalities of different eras; low car ownership, less frequent international travel; a much slower pace of change in a pre-digital age and more
@randahl Part of Ireland is still controlled by the UK after centuries of colonisation, ethnic cleansing and oppression. It's not reasonable to blame the Irish for maintaining cross-border compatibility as long as partition persists (it will not last forever). The day after reunification Ireland will join Schengen. Other changes will follow but we'll likely keep UK electric plugs and sockets as they're superior (see YouTube for details).
@slowbikeiain you may follow your own path, but how long is that path? Is it 100 meters, or is it 328 feet and 1 inch plus the width of two cat's hairs?