Look left look right. Look right look left.

This morning I caught myself looking right before left when crossing West Broadway. Growing up in America, I was taught to look left, then right, then left again. In New York, the majority of the streets are one-way, and so I look in only one direction depending on whether the street is an even or odd number. I began looking to the right first after my trip to Southeast Asia. While each country drives on a different side of the road, I spent the majority of my time in Thailand, where people drive on the left. I'm not sure why. In Myanmar, people drove on the left until 1970, when Ne Win decreed that traffic would drive on the right. It is said that a fortune-teller told him he would die in a traffic accident on the left side of the road. And so, on a morning in 1970, all traffic stopped, then slowly switched lanes. Posted by eku at January 29, 2004 10:36 AM