Last week in Japan was the first time I had ever driven a car on the left side of road. I spent a summer working in Dublin many years ago but I never once drove while I was there.

To be honest, I thought it was going to be more awkward than it was. But other than accidentally turning on the wipers a few times (they were on the opposite side to where turn signals typically live), it came to me pretty quickly.

I also noticed that left-hand traffic seems to impact the flow of many other things in Japan. On sidewalks, for example, people walk on the left. And on escalators, everyone stands on the left (and walks on the right), whereas the opposite tends to be true in Toronto.

Japan is also an orderly and rule-abiding place and so these conventions are widely followed. On more than a few occasions, I realized I was swimming upstream and then quickly switched sides.

What’s interesting is how this directional convention permeates so many aspects of everyday life. Which begs the question: where and when did it start? Do the "rules of the road" always influence everything else?

The answer seems to be that nobody really knows. There are many unproven theories. Some suggest that it has to do with how horses were ridden and walked, and that ~90% of people are right-handed.

But I couldn’t find anything definitive. What we do seem to know, at least anecdotally, is that once a side is chosen, it broadly impacts how people generally move around. Pay attention the next time you're on a busy sidewalk.

Deloitte recently asked 1,000 Americans if they would be willing to give up car ownership in favor of something that they are calling "Mobility-as-a-Service." This umbrella moniker is meant to capture everything from public transit and bike shares to Ubers and car rentals.

Here are the results:

What's interesting is how willing young people seem to be to forgo car ownership. (Note: Willing, here, includes people who answered somewhat willing, willing, and very willing.)

It's also doesn't seem to be dependent on geography. Broadly speaking, urbanites are more likely to say that they would be willing to give up owning a car. In this survey, 50% of people in urban areas said that they would be at least somewhat willing, whereas the number drops to 17% for people in rural and suburban areas. But oddly enough, young people in rural and suburban areas are just as willing, if not more willing than their urban counterparts. I wonder why.

This maybe suggests that we are seeing a generational shift in how younger people view car ownership. That, or they haven't started having enough kids yet and their perspective will change as they get older. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a mix of both, but more of the former. Because look at the large spread between the next two cohorts in the above chart. There are some trends here (assuming this data is representative). It's not just about family life.

Also noteworthy is the fact that Canadians are some of the most unwilling people, according to this survey:

Personally, I hate driving. I look forward to the day when most cars drive themselves. So I'd place myself in the very willing camp. What about you?

Here's some recent data, via CityLab, suggesting that Americans are walking less and driving less, but killing more people when they do drive around. (The report is based on data from 2019 to 2022.)

My first reaction to these high-level findings is that they seem to make sense. This time period was the pandemic. And people were locked away at home (though I used to take some seriously long walks around downtown during this dark time).

So I don't know, I'm not sure we can conclude that walking less is truly a structural phenomenon. Similarly, I'm not sure that we can immediately conclude that cars are becoming increasingly more dangerous.

According to Wikipedia, deaths per capita, deaths per billion vehicle miles traveled, and total deaths, have all been generally declining in the US since the 1960s.

However, I do wonder if there's some sort of correlation between people walking less and car-related fatalities. The most dangerous streets, in my mind, are often the ones that don't have a lot of pedestrians.

That's why, broadly speaking, it feels safer walking around Manhattan than it does Los Angeles. So maybe less people walking is enough to trigger an increase in pedestrian fatalities.