Useless Road Tidbits

Actually, how many countries drive on the left-side of the road?

Here are some facts (interesting or not) that I’ve found:

Out of the total 239 known countries and territories, here is a breakdown:

There are 76 countries/ territories that use vehicles and roads for left-side traffic (32%).

There are 163 countries/ territories that use vehicles and roads for right-side traffic (68%).

Here are other useless tidbits:

Some notable countries with left-side traffic: United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, Bahamas, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan.

Some notable countries with right-side traffic: USA, Canada, Argentina, Germany, France, Mexico, St Maarten, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Costa Rica, Cuba, Spain, Russia, Poland.

                                                                             

In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the traffic flow is on the right-side of roads, except for Hong Kong (formerly a British colony) and Macau (formerly a Portuguese colony). These two colonies still has left-side traffic flow.

Samoa, the island country, recently switched its right-side traffic flow to the left-side traffic flow. This was done last year, in 2009. On the other hand, Portugal used to have left-side traffic flow up until 1928, when the country began to switch the traffic flow over to the right-side.

Countries like Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea, used to have left-side traffic flow when they were under Japan’s rule back in the mid-1930s. These (3) countries began switching over to the right-side traffic flow soon after WWII ended.