Milsurp After Hours

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland should consider giving up driving on the left to reduce accidents by foreigners accustomed to right side motoring, a senior politician said on Friday.

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Donie Cassidy, the leader of Ireland's upper chamber Senate, cited Sweden -- which moved to the right in 1967 -- as an example of a country that switched decades after most of Europe did.

Ireland's economic growth over the past decade has attracted tens of thousands of workers especially from central and eastern European countries. It is also a popular tourist destination for visitors from the United States.

"We have all of these people coming in from Europe and from America and (because of) the roads that they are used to driving on in their own countries it is a huge difficulty when they start driving here," Cassidy told public broadcaster RTE.

"I know when I go to America it takes me five or six days to adjust."

Motoring body the AA said the idea was "completely impractical".

As another remedy, Cassidy suggested in the Senate on Thursday that people from countries driving on the right should observe a 50 mile (80 km) per hour speed limit, compared with speeds up to 120 km permitted for Irish drivers.

Besides Ireland, many former British colonies such as India and Australia keep to the left as does Japan.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Shure an' all, if they don't know their left from their bloody right how did they get a licence in the first place?

Of course the European states could throw off the memory of French conquest (and the Americans, their historical Francophilia) and go back to driving on the Left, like the Civilised World

A few countries drive on the wrong side of the road, the rest of us "know wrong from right".

Vern.

You should try Italy - they have NO BLOODY IDEA - it's whatever you can get away with - and that INCLUDES the Police

One of the most fearsome sights that I have ever seen (and that includes a lot of RSMs) is the change of the traffic lights just up the road from the Citadel in Naples. Aptly called The Charge of the Light Brigade.