Wait, people drive in the oncoming lane?

^Badluck Brian: Opposing left turner is RHD as well

Exactly this. Unless you are 100% sure it's clear, RHD or LHD, you shouldn't be making a left anyway...

By that logic, low cars shouldn't be allowed either because it's harder to scope left turns, and tall (lifted) cars shouldn't be allowed because they impede people's vision. Which is SOCIALISM

Jk.

...and if someone honks at you, which inevitably will happen, you have a middle finger for a reason. No sense in getting your car totalled, or worse, hurting yourself or a passenger, just because Joe Douche is 5 minutes late for the brower shift at McD's.

So what you guys are essentially saying is that you are impeding traffic by operating a car not designed for these roads.

When making a left turn you're impeding traffic no more than any other vehicle, since you aren't actually required to pull forward and try to make a turn.

I knew that was going to be the argument. The bottom line is driving a RHD car is more difficult and inherently more prone to accidents because of the reduced visibility.

You guys who have never driven RHD let alone owned a RHD vehicle yet are still making claims about what driving RHD is like are starting to sound a bit stupid.

No, it isn't, because you follow the same basic principals as driving a LHD vehicle. It's different, but it's no more difficult. When was the last time you heard of a mail truck being in an accident that was caused by it being RHD?

To me, driving RHD is really no different than driving LHD. I can drive both and can switch between RHD and LHD easily. I always mentally picture myself when driving in the middle so it doesn't affect me much. I use my mirrors too. Turning left pose no problems either. I have only been honked at once and that guys face turned red when he almost hit someone when going around me to turn left.

You can make that argument about any car, really.

Going from my AE86 to a new Corolla was "difficult" because of all the blind spots caused by the high belt-line and relatively small size of the windows.

Going from my AE86 to a slightly lifted Toyota Pickup was "difficult" cuz that thing was huge in comparison.

And my AE... well, it's quite low and turning left can be difficult. But I just wait for the light to turn yellow or red, and make especially sure I am 100% clear before making my turn. Like any RHD driver should do... or wait, no, like EVERY driver should do since if you get hit, RHD or LHD, you are automatically at fault unless the guy who hit you ran a red.

The point is, the argument can be made for any car being somewhat more difficult to drive in terms of certain aspects... the real culprit IMO is the driver rather than the car. An educated, mature driver would be able to drive safely LHD or RHD. Instead, as I said before, the types of people who buy JDM imports are typically not these people...

Such a weak argument

Even if it were true that RHD cars were more prone to accidents, it's a useless conclusion. "More prone" just means a non-zero non-negative value. It could be completely miniscule, almost undetectable.

So you have less visibility when passing in an oncoming lane on a highway and left turning in heavy traffic. Why would a RHD user just simply not choose to not pass or wait until it was clear to left turn? Who could be dumb enough to not understand they shouldn't try and turn or pass when they can't fucking see.

But forget safety, these situations would hold up traffic wouldn't they? Yes, but again, the actual effect this has on traffic is so minimal it can almost be safely ignored. The actual left turns that a RHD vehicle can't make are in situations where there is an opposing left hand turn lane that has a particularly obstructive vehicle in it. If you're left-turning in a RHD car, and there is no car in an left hand turn lane, across the intersection, then there is no obstruction. I drive a RHD car, which is why my ass is sore over this, and the frequency that I have to be conservative in left turning is so rare. Take the number of times you're at intersections where there is frequently an obstructive car, subtract the amount of times that you just turn on a left turn signal there, subtract the amount of times there happens to be no obstruction in an opposing left turn lane, subtract the times that you're first in line to left turn and actually might have been able to go but didn't because you couldn't see anything, subtract the times that you piggypack on someone else who goes through a yellow, and finally subtract the number of times where all these conditions were met.. and there wasn't actually someone sitting behind you.

This number is obviously remarkably low. Left turn lanes that are often busy often have left turn signals, and if I'm at a busy intersection trying to left turn then it's probably so busy I can't turn without a yellow anyways. It's seriously such a rare scenario, that it might hold up traffic as much as someone who is just not aggressive and likes to be sure of their left turns, or just not focused on turning at the first opportunity because they're talking to a passenger or something.

But that's not even the most important part. As of now the amount of RHD cars in the GVRD is low, the amount of these that are actually dailies and going to be in high traffic Vancouver roads is lower. IF you were to actually total the amount of minutes that a RHD holds up traffic due to being a RHD you'd probably have to wait years before that number approached a week's worth of people trying to text and drive or running on bald all seasons in the winter. Just by virtue of how few RHD cars actually drive around.

Banning RHD cars because of safety or holding up traffic is pointless. It's such a drop in the bucket, and it denies enthusiasts of a lot of non-USDM cars what they want to own for such little reason.

oh and for RHD users you can buy one of these and completely eliminate any blindspots if you want: KRUGOZOR UNIVERSAL MIRROR SYSTEM FOR RHD AND LHD CARS | eBay IT's a bit overpriced so make one yourself if you want :toot:


Oh and also, I have been lurking here for a while, what's with this HondaRacer's weird manchild anger about how people "like" (can't believe someone would like a car i dont smh -_-) GT-Rs ??? He seems like a huge fag? Considering that there are plenty of sub 100k km mint NSX, GT-Rs, Supras, RX-7s, etc. for sale in Japan I hardly think these cars are "POS's". Thanks for reading.

i guess im a super hero then, i've daily'd mine for 8 years and no accidents

Ditto. I've been driving RHD for about 4+ years now, and the only accidents I've been in are ones where my car wasn't moving.

Of course the issue brought up is left hand turns, and the defense will always be due diligence during these turns
Yes, RHD cars were made for left-sided roads, but it's easy enough to imply that they're more dangerous on our right-sided roads. It's also easy to say that most RHD owners are immature speeding pricks, but these are all ignorant assumptions without actually experiencing one.

Simply put, not all of us RHD owners are immature, incompetent, shitty driving, speeding pricks. Driving in one almost feels as if I'm a better driver because of the extra precautions I take.

Ahha but society never notices the norm do they?

There's enough immature incompetent shitty driving speeding pricks to go around and ruin the fun for all of us (LHD or RHD)

This is where they get their stats from


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chase-her lol
the drift guys with banged up corollas and S chassis and stance guys with ridiculous hellaflush probably aren't helping the dangerously modified/defective image

Me as well. I own 2 RHD cars and have been driving them for just over 4 years with no accidents. :)

I don't know why some of you guys are getting so defensive. The claim here is that driving a RHD vehicle on the road is more prone to getting into accidents than a LHD vehicle. This seems to be a proven statement.

Right Hand Drive Vehicles in a Left Hand Drive World | DriveSmartBC

I don't understand how you guys are so vehemently denying this.

I understand it's the same principals. But the fact that you have reduced visiblity makes it more difficult.

When was the last time you heard of any mail truck being in an accident? Just because you or I haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I don't know whether it has happened or not.

Yes, I suppose you CAN make that argument about any car... and it doesn't make it less valid. Maybe the new Corolla IS slightly more accident prone than an AE86 because of the slightly reduced visibility out of it. The difference here is that a RHD may be SIGNIFICANTLY more accident prone than a LHD vehicle, not just slightly.

I never said or implied educated, mature drivers aren't able to drive a RHD vehicle safely. The problem is you can't assume every single driver is this educated and mature.

Question: Given someone that is NOT that great of a driver and takes some unsafe risks, do you think he is more likely to get into an accident in a LHD vehicle or a RHD vehicle?

I'm pretty confident he would get into more accidents in a RHD vehicle.

Yes, but it doesn't appear to be in this case. I'm not sure it's as high as 40% more, but I'm confident the difference in accident rates between LHD and RHD vehicles is not insignificant.

That's the problem. You assume there aren't dumb drivers, but there are. Plenty of them. Maybe not you, maybe not me, and maybe not the majority of people here... but they are out there, and for those dumb drivers, the claim is they are more likely to get into an accident in a LHD vehicle than a RHD vehicle. Even for the good drivers, the risk overall is low, but I'm arguing that it's still higher in a RHD vehicle than a LHD vehicle.

You're taking this personally, which you shouldn't be. Nobody is saying that all drivers of RHD vehicles are incompetent. Not at all. The main problem is with the incompetent drivers. They are already at a higher risk to get into accidents period. The risk is even higher if you put them in a RHD vehicle.

Just to be clear, never once did I say I support the proposal of banning RHD vehicles. I'm just saying that it is most likely true that RHD vehicles get into accidents in a higher propotion than LHD vehicles.

i drive both rhd and lhd, cant tell the difference honestly... drive throughs are a bit harder because you have to lean over but clearly everyones exaggerating left turns or clearly do not daily RHD. its as hard to drive as automatic vs standard, which isnt hard at all, if anything its more fun. my only complaint is more tracks here are counter clockwise, its more annoying to see the apex

Surmised: suppose that something is true without having evidence to confirm it.

So they don't actually have any evidence to prove this, they're just guessing. That sounds like a really solid basis for writing laws upon.

Your visibility isn't reduced, it's just different. There are times that you're able to see things in a RHD car that you aren't able to see if you're LHD.

If the problem is the drivers then we should be focusing on making people better drivers/punishing the shit ones more severely, not dumbing things down for the lowest common denominator like society does for everything else these days. If someone is stupid enough to get into an accident caused by visibility in a RHD car, they're just as likely to get into an accident in a LHD car. It might not be the same accident, but eventually the bad habits will cause an accident.

edit: Alternative thought, instead of banning RHD vehicles, why not require an additional road test/license step for RHD? What additional training do posties and garbage men have? It'd be annoying but better than a firewall swap (which done incorrectly is probably more dangerous than a RHD car).

Read it again.

The surmised part is that the increased risk of collision is because of the reduced visibility. It is NOT saying that the INCREASED RISK or the 40% higher likelihood is surmised. Do you understand the difference?

Sure, you would have a better view of a hot chick on the sidewalk. Seriously though, I would like to hear a specific example of where the view from the RHD perspective is beneficial over LHD.

WRONG. They are NOT just as likely to get into an accident in a LHD car. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT.

Nobody is saying they WON'T get into accidents in a LHD car. It's to say that they would get into even MORE accidents in a RHD car.

Because it's not logically viable. Why not have speed tests to allow good drivers to drive 70kmph instead of 50kmph on city streets? I would love to have that. Will it ever happen? Nope. Too hard to enforce.

For the record, I have been driving for over sixteen years, and the only at fault accident I've been in was when I fell asleep at the wheel as a teenager.

Since we're sharing here I've been driving 9 years with zero accidents, the last 3 having been part time in a RHD car.

Correlation vs causation, it's all well and good to say RHD vehicles are involved in 40% more crashes, but if you don't have any evidence that the 40% increase is actually caused by the cars being RHD what have you got?

I also looked into that ICBC study and found some other flaws:
- they used claims instead of accidents.
- they didn't record coverage held by the claimant, so people with complete coverage are shown more likely to have a collision than people with only liability coverage.
- they didn't include data on severity of collisions.
- they determined RHD as being everything imported.

A fair number of RHD imports are sports cars owned by car enthusiasts, who are 1) generally more likely to have full insurance, 2) more likely to make a claim if their car in damaged in any way, which will skew this study. Second, since they just went off import status, this includes US imports that are LHD, again skewing the study.

For starters, any road with a slight curve to the right you can see more clearly around the vehicles in front of you. Parallel parking is easier and it's safer for RCMP officers.

Well considering how piddly the amount of RHD cars is that's hardly a significant increase anyways. I pulled some stats and here's what we've got:

According to gov't stats there are ~21M passenger vehicles in Canada, 95k of which are RHD. In BC there are ~2.7M passenger vehicles, which is ~12.8% of the vehicles in the country. Assuming we have approximately the same spread of RHD cars across the country that gives BC ~12k RHD cars, which make up just 0.44% of all the cars in BC. ICBC says there's 260k collisions in BC each year, so ~9.6% the cars in BC are involved in an accident each year (possibly less, I'm not sure if the 260k includes commercial vehicles as well).

If the accident stats for LHD and RHD were equal we'd have 1155 RHD accidents a year, ignoring the previously mentioned flaws adding 40% more crashes gives us 1618 RHD crashes a year. So that's an increase of 463 crashes per year by allowing RHD vehicles on the road, or a whopping 0.18% increase in crashes vs banning RHD.

Now I'm not sure where you guys went to school but I'm pretty sure 0.18% is jack fucking shit, that's probably even less than the rounding error in ICBC's crash numbers. And keep in mind those aren't all big accidents, this includes parking lot fender benders and people bumping into parked cars.

the real reasons for icbc wanting the rhd cars off the road,
one market protection they are likely heavily lobbied by ppl such as jim pattison who have a stake in lost sales,
two its more expensive to fix when something specific needs to be imported

and the excuses of poor visibilty, thats more down to shitty driving skills, come out to autox, and i'll show u how poor your visibility skills are in a left hand drive or right hand drive car or in a kart

That's great. You didn't need to prove anything with your driving record to me, because this debate isn't about any one person, nor is the claim that some people can drive RHD without getting into accidents. I only shared mine because you seem to think I think it's harder driving a RHD because I'm a shitty driver.

:fulloffuck: What else could it be then?!

Do you have a link to this study?

Which is fully negated by roads with LHD vehicles on a slight curve to the left. Net additional benefit equals zero for a RHD vehicle.

... Sure, I guess? Not so sure it's much of a safety factor to be able to parallel park easier, but okay.

If you're talking about RCMP officers that are on the side of the road, not sure how legitimate this one is. I don't think most cops that get hit are because the driver misjudged how much space is between their car and the cop. I think most are either drunk or have lost control of their vehicle. I dunno, maybe cops do get hit slightly less with RHD than LHD. I doubt there are any statistics to support or refute the claim. However, I'll counter with LHD vehicles are safer for fast food windows, toll booths, and border agents.

Great stats. I can't validate them, nor do I really care to. Your argument is flawed though. It doesn't matter that it's only 0.18% increase in the total number of crashes. It's only 0.18% because of the hugely disproportionate number of LHD vehicles vs RHD vehicles.

What if there are only 1000 RHD vehicles, and 10M LHD vehicles? Let's say the crash rate for LHD vehicles is 10%, but just an as example, the crash rate is 100% for RHD vehicles?

That means you'd expect there to be 1M crashes involving LHD vehicles, and 1000 (instead of 100) crashes involving RHD vehicles.

By your logic, that's only a 0.09% increase in the total number of crashes... but yet in this fictitious example, RHD vehicles are crashing 10x more than LHD vehicles. Should ICBC be looking at the 0.09% increase, or the 10x more crashes metric? Logically, it'd be the second one, which is the same case as the real life example, just not as extreme.

Oh, and I state again that I never said I am for the banning of RHD vehicles. Again, I'm just stating that RHD vehicles are in fact more likely to get into accidents than LHD vehicles. That's it, that's all.

I never said you were a shitty driver, and seeing as you've never driven a RHD vehicle your history or views on such things are pretty much worthless.

It could be a complete fluke for all ICBC knows. Because there are relatively few RHD vehicles here, each claim involving a RHD vehicle weighs more heavily into these stats. Like I showed above, it takes only a few hundred RHD claims to bump them from being equal to LHD up to being 40% more claims. Hell, they don't even mention if the RHD vehicles were considered at fault in those claims, just that there were claims made involving those cars (and to me that's a huge red flag on this whole "study").

It's the same study you first brought up.

You asked for an example, I gave you one. Both sides of the roads will have pros and cons.

I'm referring to officers that get hit by a second vehicle while at the window of the first one they pulled over, when they're talking to the driver of a RHD car they're on the shoulder instead of having cars whiz by their butt. There aren't going to be stats for that but it is going to be a safer place for them to be. I'm not sure what kind of drive thrus/toll booths/borders you go through but I doubt RHD vs LHD will affect "safety" at 2km/h.

Spend 3 minutes on Google and you can verify all those numbers. It does matter that it's only 0.18% when ICBC is using bullshit scare tactics calling it a 40% increase to try to justify banning such a small number of vehicles. Like I said before, due to the small number of RHD vehicles each claim involving one has a disproportionately large impact on the numbers the way that ICBC is looking at it.

If you're going to go into what ifs and made up stats you can fuck right off. Sorry, but being willing to make up your own stats when you're unwilling to look at the ACTUAL NUMBER makes you sound like a fucking idiot.

Even if the study from ICBC wasn't full of crap, it's still such a small number of vehicles that it only takes a handful of claims above the average to come to their conclusion. You can't use such a relatively small group to form conclusions the way ICBC has and say its very accurate.