Right vs. Left

Mark Steyn writes in The Corner on Nat'l. Review Online:

Right vs. Left

Driving, that is. Over in the Nordlingistan province of the NR caliphate, Jay writes:

Can I tell you something odd about St. Thomas? It’s in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the license plates say “America’s Paradise” — but they drive on the left side of the road. As it did not take me long to discover.

But that's only the half of it: Generally, countries that drive on the left (Britain) have right-hand drive vehicles, just as countries that drive on the right (America) have left-hand drive vehicles. St Thomas drives on the British side of the road but in American vehicles. Whose wacky idea was that? I only noticed when my taxi driver attempted to pass a school bus on a winding mountain road and pulled out with no clue what was oncoming. Fantastic! It's the nearest I've come to the old (and deplorably racist) joke about Ireland switching over to driving on the right but phasing it in initially with east-bound traffic only.

I'd always assumed driving on the right was some federal thing. But, if St Thomas can drive on the left, I might get it introduced in New Hampshire just to mess with Massachusetts heads.

Brings back memories of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.