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Ripped from http://www.travel-library.com/gener...html#historical
Why do some countries drive on the right and others on the left?
Most people are right-handed, which leads to a natural tendency to favour one side of the road or another depending on the means of transportation being used. The most important factor seems to be the relative dominance of different types of animal-drawn carts and wagons.

Walking: keep right. Most people have a natural tendency to keep to the right. Right-handed swordsmen may prefer to keep to the left in order to have their right arm nearer to and their scabbard farther from an opponent, and to reduce the chance of the scabbard (worn on the left) hitting other people.

Riding a horse: keep left. A right-handed person finds it easier to mount a horse from the left side of the horse, and it would be difficult to do otherwise if wearing a sword (on the left). It is safer to mount and dismount towards the side of the road, rather than in the middle of traffic, so if one mounts on the left, then the horse should be ridden on the left side of the road. Horsemen armed with swords prefer to keep left of each other in order that their sword arm is nearer their opponent. This also makes it easier to offer one's right hand in friendship.

Jousting: keep right. Jousting knights normally held their lances in their right hands, and it is sometimes assumed that they must have therefore ridden on the left. (Kincaid's book makes this error.) In fact, jousting knights ride on the right (or if you prefer, pass their opponent left shoulder to left shoulder), hold the lance in the right hand, and aim by pointing it to the left, across the horse's neck. See, for example, photographs of a joust at a tournament from the Academy of European Medieval Martial Arts, the Free Lancers of the Cimmerian Combatives, or the article "how to joust" from the About.com Medieval History section. I have noted one possible exception to this: a mention of the southern Italian style of jousting as described by the Free Lancers. Thanks to Paul Erik Leopold for pointing out the misconception.

Leading a horse or a cart: keep right. It appears to be a universal practice that people lead horses with the right hand while walking on the left side of the horse. To best control the horse and to avoid collisions between wide carts, it is best for the person leading the horse or cart to walk between the vehicle and oncoming traffic, thus keeping the cart or horse to the right. This also facilitates conversations between people meeting, and it is more comfortable for the person walking to be in the centre of the road than to be at its edge.

Wagon teams with postilion riders: keep right. In some countries, teams of horses pulling a wagon were driven by a person riding one of the horses in the team. This is called postilion control. A right-handed rider mounts from the left and controls the team with a whip held in the right hand, and therefore must mount the left-rear horse of the team. From this position, the driver has the best view of the distance between his vehicle and oncoming traffic by keeping to the right.

Wagon teams driven from the wagon: keep left. In some places, teams of horses pulling a wagon were driven by a person sitting on the wagon. A right-handed driver controls the team with a whip held in the right hand, and so must sit on the far right-hand side of the vehicle, or the whip will hit the vehicle and anyone else seated on the wagon. From the right-hand side of the vehicle, the driver finds it easiest to maintain separation with oncoming traffic by keeping to the left. It is also easier to quickly turn the team to the left than to the right if the whip is in the right hand, so it is better to keep left so that a quick left turn can be made off the road in case of a potential collision.

The choice of sides seems to have been governed by the time of introduction of these different modes of transportation and their relative numbers, as well as by social and political influence. Most often, left-hand riding was the initial standard. In areas where carts and postilion riders became dominant, right-hand driving was adopted. In areas where wagons driven from the vehicle became dominant, left-hand driving remained the norm.

The next logical question, of course, is why different countries adopted different types of vehicles. Kincaid gives few clues to the answer, providing in some cases a chronology, but no broadly applicable theory. For example, the passenger coach (a wagon driven from a seat on the vehicle) appears to have originated in Hungary, so its earlier appearance there reinforced left-hand driving in much of central Europe. In France, on the other hand, cart-drivers and postilion riders dominated traffic so that the later introduction of wagons driven from the vehicle did not change the established pattern

Did the United States ever drive on the left?
Yes. In the early years of English colonization of North America, English driving customs were followed and the colonies drove on the left. The colonies gradually changed to right-hand driving after independence from England. Kincaid quotes an English author writing in 1806 as saying, "in some parts of the United States, it is a custom among the people to drive on the right side of the road," implying that in other parts, people still drove on the left. We know for certain that the colonies farther north along the coast drove on the left well into the 20th century (see the question about Canada below). I have read that the first law requiring drivers to keep right was passed in Pennsylvania in 1792, and that similar laws were passed in New York in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813. However, I don't yet have primary sources for this information, so it is possible that these states weren't actually changing sides, but only codifying existing practices in law. Other anecdotes from various sources also support the conclusion that the United States drove on the left until some time in the early 1800s, although I have not yet confirmed the dates of the changes from left to right which apparently were made state by state.

However, Kincaid is not convinced that left-hand driving was ever truly widespread in the American colonies. He points out that the colonists were not exclusively English (for example, the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, which later became New York, would have been accustomed to driving on the right), and says that the first vehicles used by the colonists were carts and postilion-control wagons such as the Conestoga, which are best driven on the right. Wagons like the stagecoach (best driven on the left) were not introduced until much later -- too late to change the established practice.

Did Canada ever drive on the left?
Yes, until the 1920s in some areas, but never in Ontario or Quebec.

Ontario and Quebec have always driven on the right, because the first European settlements in these areas were French. (There were of course plenty of native people living there before the French arrived, but in this as in other things, Europeans made the rules.) In the early European conquest of North America, the French controlled the interior from Quebec all the way to Louisiana, and drove on the right. The English occupied the coast and drove on the left in Atlantic Canada and probably in New England. When the English won control of Quebec from France, the French people living there were permitted to retain many customs, including their language, religion, civil law, and evidently the custom of driving on the right. Settlement continued to spread inland across the continent, remaining on the right-hand side of the road.

British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces, however, were administered separately from Upper and Lower Canada, and even after Confederation remained staunchly English and on the left side of the road. They switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the USA:

British Columbia: 1 January 1922

New Brunswick: 1 December 1922

Nova Scotia: 15 April 1923
Prince Edward Island: 1 May 1924
Newfoundland drove on the left until 1947, and joined Canada in 1949.

More information about the changeover in Nova Scotia is given below in the section "Changing from one side to the other".

Which side of the road did they drive on in ancient times?
Ancient Rome probably drove on the left. We don't know about other ancient civilizations.

The side of the road one drives on seems to be one of those mundane details of everyday life which people take for granted and never bother to write down. In his book, Kincaid comes up with a blank: "I have been unable to discover any firm evidence as to what the rule of the road was in any part of the ancient civilizations in Greece, Rome, or Assyria. It seems inconceivable that there was not one." We have, however, collected two pieces of evidence which suggest that the ancient Romans drove on the left.

In late 1998, the remains of a Roman quarry was discovered at Blunsdon Ridge, near Swindon, England. It is one of the largest and best-preserved Roman quarries known. Ruts in the road leading to this quarry are much deeper on one side of the road than on the other. If it can be assumed that the side of the road with deeper ruts was the side used by loaded carts leaving the quarry, while the side with shallow ruts indicates empty carts arriving, then we can conclude that at this particular location, at least, the Romans drove on the left. (Sources: a web page in the SwindonWeb Local News Archives for October 1998 which has since disappeared; Gwynne Dyer, Is driving on the right right or wrong?)

The other evidence comes from a Roman coin. Robert Pease writes that he has seen a picture of a denarius from between 50 BC and 50 AD showing two horsemen riding past each other, right shoulder to right shoulder (i.e. each keeping to the left side of the road).

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