Many, many years ago, I operated a small museum in Virginia
City called the Pioneer Livery Stables and had more than twenty buggies, carts,
wagons, and sleighs on display. I also had a team of Clydesdales and access to
other horses and ponies that were trained in the harness.
It was a lot of fun to take the big team and a spring wagon
into the Long Valley area, now all grown up with hundreds of houses, sometimes
to spend the weekend at a springs or just take a day ride. Driving a beautiful
team that is pulling a wagon that has seen a century of duty is pure happiness
for me.
What brought this little commentary about has to do with
driving, whether a single, a team, or more than one team. One of my wagons was
used in the movie Silver Dollar, and we had four teams up on that wagon. That
was surely a thrill.
The wagons, buggies, and carts were all set up to be driven
from the right side, and in olden times, roadways and trails were often left
hand traffic. There were few communities, territories, or states that had laws
on driving. A quick view of old photos will show that, but don’t look for it in
every western movie because that fact is often overlooked.
My child bride and I were watching a movie the other night
and I pointed out that they got it right. The wagon was driven from the right
hand seat and travelled on the left side of the road. Patty said, “When did we
change to right hand traffic and left hand driving?”
There are more countries in the world with right hand
traffic than left, with Great Britain and many of the old British colonies
leading the left hand traffic pack. Consensus seems to be that because most
people are right handed, and most weapons prior to the general use of gunpowder
were operated with the right hand, if one were to meet an adversary on the
road, it would be best if that enemy were to be on one’s right side. Thus, left
hand traffic, which predominated until good old Henry Ford came along.
Before automobiles, though, Napoleon, a lefty, decreed that
all the countries he conquered would have right hand traffic. Wonder what he
would have done had he been ambidextrous?
A man named Albert C. Rose, some refer to him as being the
unofficial historian of the U.S. Public Roads department, seems to think that
in colonial times we had right hand traffic, but I challenge that simply
because of the way buggies, wagons, carts, and sleighs were built, particularly
I would like to point out, that brakes for those vehicles were operated from the
right side and harness for teams was such that they worked better from the
right side.
The earliest automobiles that were steered by way of a
tiller had them mounted in the center, but when steering wheels came along,
they were, for the most part, mounted on the right side. It was Henry Ford’s
Model T that changed things. Ford put the steering wheel on the left side, and
by about 1915 or so, all the American manufacturers did the same. I couldn’t
find out why Ford decided to put his steering on the left side.
I also spent many years working in the mines in Nevada, and
driving the huge haul trucks is something else again. Most mines demand left
hand traffic on the haul roads leading from the pits to the mill. And, to make
things a little more interesting, the driver often sits on the left side, but
there is a good reason for that. The machine is huge, carrying as much as one
hundred fifty tons of ore, and knowing where that truck is when approaching
another truck is tricky. The driver is trained not to look at the other truck
but rather guide his or her truck by watching the left side of the road. It
works.
Driving the underground haul trucks is a whole nuther story.
The drifts and tunnels are just wide enough for the vehicles to get through,
and if you value your job you do not want to take out rib posts as you haul the
ore out of the mine. You’re trained to look far down and in the middle of the
drift or tunnel. That way your vehicle stays in the middle of the very narrow
roadway.
Until next time, read good books and stay regular
Johnny Gunn
Member, Western Fictioneers
Member,
International Thriller Writers
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