This week Judy Hutchinson asks: Why, when one drives up to the Savoy, is it altered so that you drive on the right side of the street?
This is a very good question and it makes this the only street in the UK where you drive on the right like in America.
This is said to date from the days of the hackney carriage when a cab driver would reach his arm out of the driver’s door window to open the passenger’s door (which opened backwards and had the handle at the front), without having to get out of the cab himself. Additionally, the hotel entrance’s small roundabout meant that vehicles needed a turning circle of 25 ft (8 m) to navigate it. This is still the legally required turning circle for all London cabs.
Fascinating!
Author: jonathan
Jonathan is a consummate Anglophile who launched Anglotopia.net in 2007 to channel his passion for Britain. Londontopia is its sister publication dedicated to everything London.
If the traffic is on the right, why are the cars on the right side of the photo parked facing the camera, as if they were driving on the left?