Irrational dislikes

[mikewint]

they are thinking of left side drive in the mine,

Prerevolutionary War the American Colonies followed British Custom of driving on the left. After independence everything British had to go. Despite the developments in the US, some parts of Canada continued to drive on the left until shortly after the Second World War. The territory controlled by the French (from Quebec to Louisiana) drove on the right, but the territory occupied by the English (British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) kept left. British Columbia and the Atlantic provinces switched to the right in the 1920s in order to conform with the rest of Canada and the USA. Newfoundland drove on the left until 1947, and joined Canada in 1949.
In the 1960s, Great Britain also considered changing, but the country's conservative powers did everything they could to block the proposal. Furthermore, the fact that it would cost billions of pounds to change everything round was not much of an incentive… Eventually, Britain dropped the idea. Today, only four European countries still drive on the left: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

 

[pbehn]

lol

Oops, no I rationally hate it then.

No, it is completely irrational because I drove in left hand drive countries for 30 years and twenty of those years I was in right hand drive cars, this includes long periods in Greece Italy and Saudi Arabia. I never had an accident but I saw more than I can count. Drivng in Europe on motorways is easier in a right hand drive car than left. In traffic in British car you are next to a European driver in their car. One French driver asked me in his beat up dented all over Peugeot "do you have a problem driving in Paris" I looked at his car and replied "Not as much as you do". Feeling safe and being safe are not the same thing.

 

[pbehn]

In the 1960s, Great Britain also considered changing, but the country's conservative powers did everything they could to block the proposal. Furthermore, the fact that it would cost billions of pounds to change everything round was not much of an incentive… Eventually, Britain dropped the idea. Today, only four European countries still drive on the left: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

It was considered for about 3 nanoseconds. If it were ever done it would result in many thousands of deaths which would go against the person who gave it the go ahead.

 

[mikewint]

Depends on how you make the change-over. For example, after the Second World War, left-driving Sweden, the odd one out in mainland Europe, felt increasing pressure to change sides in order to conform with the rest of the continent. The problem was that all their neighbors already drove on the right side and since there are a lot of small roads without border guards leading into Norway and Finland, one had to remember in which country one was.
In 1955, the Swedish government held a referendum on the introduction of right-hand driving. Although no less than 82.9% voted "no" to the plebiscite, the Swedish parliament passed a law on the conversion to right-hand driving in 1963. Finally, the change took place on Sunday, 3 September 1967, at 5 o'clock in the morning. The day was referred to as Dagen H or, in English, H day. The 'H' stands for 'Högertrafik', the Swedish word for 'right-hand traffic'. All traffic with private motor-driven vehicles was prohibited four hours before and one hour after the conversion, in order to be able to rearrange all traffic signs. Even the army was called in to help. Also a very low speed limit was applied, which was raised in a number of steps. The whole process took about a month. After Sweden's successful changeover, Iceland changed the following year, in 1968.
One of the funnier rationals for left driving was Pakistan. Pakistan considered changing to the right in the 1960s, but ultimately decided not to do it. The main argument against the shift was that camel trains often drove through the night while their drivers were dozing. The difficulty in teaching old camels new tricks was decisive in forcing Pakistan to reject the change.

 

[pbehn]

Depends on how you make the change-over. For example, after the Second World War, left-driving Sweden, the odd one out in mainland Europe,.

The UK population has increased by 50% since the end of the war and car traffic has increased by thousands in percentage terms. All the lights are in the wrong places and facing the wrong way but the biggest problem is people looking the wrong way when crossing the road especially old people after a few beers.

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... some parts of Canada continued to drive on the left until shortly after the Second World War. The territory controlled by the French (from Quebec to Louisiana) drove on the right, but the territory occupied by the English (British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) kept left."

Huh .... your history is off. When do you think Canada became a country?

 

[pbehn]

My wife's irrational dislike is actually hatred and it is cyclists. She doesn't drive any more and has never ridden a bike since she was six. Whenever a cyclist is in view she is tense and irritable, she frequently comments on their riding but in thirty four years has never made a compliment on their riding, she is also an arachnophobe and I think in her mind cyclists are human spiders, she will interrupt a conversation to "tut" at a cyclist on a cycle path. Fffing hilarious at times.

 

[mikewint]

your history is off. When do you think Canada became a country?

The British North America Act of 1867 created the modern state of Canada by combining the Province of Canada, Ontario and Quebec nowadays, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a dominion within the British Empire. My phraseology was bad. I should have said, "The territory that HAD been controlled by the French from Quebec to Louisiana drove on the right"
The 1763 Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years War (French and Indian War here in N. America) and awarded Frances N. American possessions to Britain. So Britain got Canada and Spain got Louisiana. Quebec having been a part of New France retained its French influences, i.e. driving on the right.
Before the French Revolution, the aristocracy traveled on the left of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right, but after the storming of the Bastille and the subsequent events, aristocrats preferred to keep a low profile and joined the peasants on the right. An official keep-right rule was introduced in Paris in 1794, more or less parallel to Denmark, where driving on the right had been made compulsory in 1793. Later, Napoleon's conquests spread the new rightism to the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Switzerland, Germany, Poland and many parts of Spain and Italy. The states that had resisted Napoleon kept left – Britain, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Portugal. This European division, between the left- and right-hand nations would remain fixed for more than 100 years, until after the First World War.

 

[michaelmaltby]

"... combining the Province of Canada, Ontario and Quebec nowadays, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a dominion within the British Empire."

Still off .... . Upper Canada (Ontario) Lower Canada (Quebec) were 2 'provinces'. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were never part of Quebec . . they were separate.

 

[mikewint]

The name "Canada" itself most likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word "kanata," meaning "village" or "settlement." In 1535, two Aboriginal youths told French explorer Jacques Cartier about the route to kanata; referring to the village of Stadacona, the site of the present-day City of Québec. For lack of another name, Cartier used the word "Canada" to describe not only the village, but the entire area.
The name was soon applied to an even larger area; maps in 1547 designated everything north of the St. Lawrence River as Canada. Cartier also called the St. Lawrence River the "rivière du Canada," a name used until the early 1600s. By 1616, although the entire region was known as New France, the area along the great river of Canada and the Gulf of St. Lawrence was still called Canada.
Canada was a therefore a French colony within New France in addition the word "Canada" at this point referred to the territory along the Saint Lawrence River, then known as the Canada river, from Grosse Island in the east to a point between Quebec and Three Rivers. French explorations continued "unto the Countreys of Canada" long before any permanent settlements were established. Although a permanent trading post and habitation was established at Tadoussac in 1600, it was under a trade monopoly and thus not constituted as an official French colonial settlement. As a result, the first official settlement was not established within Canada until the founding of Quebec by Samuel de Champlain in 1608. The other four colonies within New France were Hudson's Bay to the north, Acadia and Newfoundland to the east, and Louisiana far to the south. Canada, the most developed colony of New France, was divided into three districts, Québec, Trois-Rivières, and Montréal, each with its own government. The governor of the District of Quebec was also the governor-general of all New France.
So historically the successor to the French colony of Canada is the Province of Quebec. The term Canada may also refer to today's Canadian federation created in 1867, or the historical Province of Canada, a British colony comprising southern Ontario and southern Quebec, referred to respectively as Upper Canada and Lower Canada when they were themselves separate British colonies prior to 1841.
On July 1, 1867, the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick became "one Dominion under the name of Canada."

 

[michaelmaltby]

".... So historically the successor to the French colony of Canada is the Province of Quebec."


Mute point. ..... source? France's definition of Canada was rendered null and void on The Plains of Abraham.

'Historically' ... Canada is an indigenous-peopled territory.

Did Canadians ever drive on the left?

A few times, but I was just really tired...woke me up fast though.

 

[pbehn]

Today, only four European countries still drive on the left: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

The United Kingdom itself is two countries (England and Scotland) a Principality (Wales) and the Province of Northern Ireland. In addition there are various other "bits" like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

 

[pbehn]

Before the French Revolution, the aristocracy traveled on the left of the road, forcing the peasantry over to the right, but after the storming of the Bastille and the subsequent events, aristocrats preferred to keep a low profile and joined the peasants on the right. An official keep-right rule was introduced in Paris in 1794, more or less parallel to Denmark, where driving on the right had been made compulsory in 1793. Later, Napoleon's conquests spread the new rightism to the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Switzerland, Germany, Poland and many parts of Spain and Italy. .

Any discussion of the UK driving on the right would end as soon as someone said it was Napoleons idea. Wellington and Nelson would spin in their graves etc etc etc.

 

[fubar57]

The United Kingdom itself is two countries (England and Scotland) a Principality (Wales) and the Province of Northern Ireland. In addition there are various other "bits" like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

​

 

[mikewint]

The Province of Quebec was a colony in North America created by Great Britain after the Seven Years' War. Great Britain acquired French Canada by the Treaty of Paris in which (after a long debate) France negotiated to keep the small but very rich sugar island of Guadeloupe instead. By Britain's Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada (part of New France) was renamed the Province of Quebec. The new British province extended from the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic Ocean, southwest through the Saint Lawrence River Valley to the Great Lakes and beyond to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Portions of its southwest (below the Great Lakes) were later ceded to the United States in a later Treaty of Paris (1783) at the conclusion of the American Revolution.
Under the Proclamation, Quebec included the cities of Quebec and Montreal, as well as a zone surrounding them, but did not extend as far west as the Great Lakes or as far north as Rupert's Land.

In 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act that allowed Quebec to restore the use of French customary law in private matters alongside the British common law system. The act also enlarged the boundaries of Quebec to include the Ohio Country and part of the Illinois Country, from the Appalachian Mountains on the east, south to the Ohio River, west to the Mississippi River and north to the southern boundary of lands owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, or Rupert's Land.

Through Quebec, the British Crown retained access to the Ohio and Illinois Countries even after the Treaty of Paris, which was meant to have ceded this land to the United States. By well-established trade and military routes across the Great Lakes, the British continued to supply not only their own troops but a wide alliance of Native American nations through Detroit, Fort Niagara, Fort Michilimackinac, etc. until these posts were turned over to the United States following the Jay Treaty (1794).

Due to an influx of Loyalist refugees from the American Revolutionary War, the demographics of Quebec came to shift and now included a substantial English-speaking, Anglican or Protestant element from the former Thirteen Colonies. These United Empire Loyalists settled mainly in the Eastern Townships, Montreal, and what was known then as the pays d'en haut (high country) west of the Ottawa River. The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the colony in two at the Ottawa River, so that the western part (Upper Canada) could be under the British legal system, with English speakers in the majority. The eastern part was named Lower Canada.

The Province of Lower Canada was now a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the modern-day Province of Quebec, Canada, and the Labrador region of the modern-day Province of Newfoundland and Labrador until the Labrador region was transferred to Newfoundland in 1809.

 

[Lucky13]

I'm waiting for the first one to admit, that they don't like bacon, cheese or sausages....lol

 

[mikewint]

Jan, as I recall we did threads on cheese (I can name several of them I can't get past my nose or worse like CASU MARZU) and sausages like HAGGIS and BLOOD PUDDING add to the list of YUCK

View: https://youtu.be/2NzUm7UEEIY

 

[pbehn]

.​

Fubar, I was referring to political status, the Isle of Man is a self governing Crown dependency. The five islands of the Channel Islands Guernsey Jersey Alderney Sark and Herm are part of two bailiwicks Jersey and Guernsey. They are part of the British Islands but not part of the British Isles as far as the definition of the UK goes.
I didn't invent the term bailiwick, it exists only for as relations between the Channel islands and UK government.
Bailiwick - Wikipedia

 

[swampyankee]

Today, only four European countries still drive on the left: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta.

...all of which are islands, meaning that drivers have to do something obvious, like take a ferry, to go from a country driving on the correct side of the road to one driving on the wrong side.

 

[Robert Porter]

I have an irrational dislike of idiots. I truly believe it should be legal to hunt and kill them for sport. I am not speaking here of people that are disabled or mentally challenged. I am talking about people that willfully remain ignorant and could care less. And banjo's, I hates banjo's I does! Oh and my current irrational dislike is heavy bass in a car that actually makes my teeth vibrate when they are next to me at a traffic light. I really think they ought to be legal to shoot as well.