August 13th is International Left-Handers' Day. Yes, if you are a member of the sinister minority, you have a day dedicated to you.
As with pretty much every human trait that is not shared by the majority, left-handedness has to contend with its own set of disadvantages, some coincidental or accidental and some the result of stereotyping and conscious or unconscious bias.
The fact that this article's opening paragraph refers to the left-handed minority as 'sinister' - a term generally perceived to have unfavourable connotations - is a good example. 'Sinister' is simply Latin for left (as in sinister and dexter - left and right) but where the Latin word for right forms the origin of the complimentary term 'dextrous', the word for left has been assigned, unchanged, to dark things from which we expect nothing good. Seems a tad unfair, doesn't it?
So, now we have established that right-handed people are good and left-handed people are evil, let's look a little deeper into the southpaw experience, especially behind the wheel of a car.
Good and bad news for left-hand drivers
We have good news and bad news for lefty drivers, but let's get the bad news out of the way first. Research published in 2017 showed that left-hand drivers are more likely to have serious car accidents and more likely to be caught speeding than their right-handed brethren. They also get more parking fines.
On the face of it, that might seem to suggest that there's something to the old stereotype about left-handers being the dodgy ones, but hold your horses: you haven't heard the good news yet.
Damned lies and statistics
The good news for southpaws is that the 2017, UK-focused research seems far from academically rigorous, and news stories based on it appear to have been written in the interests of clickbait rather than education, science or road safety. In fact, other research contradicts those findings and suggests that left-handed drivers may be superior behind the wheel.
Want more good news? Insurance companies really don't seem that interested in whether or not you are left-handed and few of them even ask the question. They are more likely to want to know if your car itself is right or left-hand drive.
Furthermore, statistically, left-handers are more likely to pass their driving tests first time than right-handers.
Suddenly, right-handed readers are looking a little less smug.
The American Experience
While researching this article, we found a relatively in-depth US study that seemed to suggest that America's left-handers are the better drivers.
A decade ago, the Center for Handedness Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico, conducted a study that scrutinised the driving abilities and accident rates of approximately 1,500 drivers over a ten-year period. The research considered a broad range of factors, including accident statistics, driving habits and behaviour patterns relating to things like sudden braking, skillful execution of complex manoeuvres and the times of day at which people drive.
The results were so marked that the insurance company who collaborated with the CfHR on the research dropped its premiums for left-handed motorists on the strength of the study.
Explanations?
Research on this topic is surprisingly scarce, and what there is tends to be quite old. It really doesn't seem safe to draw any firm conclusions about driving ability from the stats, but common sense still suggests some obvious candidates when it comes to explaining what researchers thought they saw.
Whatever differences there are between the performance of UK vs US right and left-handed drivers are most likely due, in large part, to the vehicles they use.
UK cars have the steering wheel on the right, meaning that approximately 90% of UK drivers do most of the steering with their dominant hand, using the non-dominant (AKA subdominant) hand for additional tasks such as shifting gear and operating controls on the centre console and dashboard. Therefore, UK and US drivers use different hands for driving tasks.
Additionally, the USA has always had a higher proportion of automatic transmission vehicles than the UK, so fewer uses of the gear stick.
It is sensible to consider these differences in the vehicles, along with the additional implications of driving on opposite sides of the road, when comparing the relative performance of drivers, especially differences between right and left-handed drivers.
We will continue the search for recent, robust research into the subject, and to share it if we find it. Meanwhile, there really doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between us, regardless of which hand we favour.
