Institute and Policlinic for Occupational Medicine, Environmental Medicine and Prevention Research, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany.
Institute for Biomedical Ethics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Department of Health, Ethics and Society, CAPHRI Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Environ Res. 2020 Apr;183:109246. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109246. Epub 2020 Feb 12.
Nowadays, the roots of left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) - including fighting on horse-back and whipping horses that are drawing carriages - are at an all-time low; thus, it is time to assess and appreciate the nexus of road-safety practices and human neurophysiology. We hypothesize that safety of LHT and RHT can be associated with neurophysiology. We summarize scattered empirical research into plausible links between neurophysiological aspects such as handedness, eye movement bias, and hemispheric lateralisation and how safe, in theory, LHT vs. RHT may be for whom. The scarcity and limitations of empirical data into road traffic accidents associated with LHT or RHT are surprising. Even though it was claimed that countries with LHT have lower collision rates than countries with RHT some 50 years ago, we lack informative analyses of traffic accidents in countries with either LHT or RHT which consider plausibly associated neurophysiology. Overall, we predict that LHT (with the driver sitting on the right) is safer than RHT. As 'the rule of the road' and neurophysiology may have important unrecognized "side" effects, we suggest that (and how) this rationale should be tested.
如今，无论是从历史渊源还是实际情况来看，左行交通（LHT）和右行交通（RHT）的基础都在逐渐消失（例如，骑马作战和驾辕驭马的情况已不复存在）。因此，现在是时候评估和认识道路安全实践与人类神经生理学之间的关系了。我们假设 LHT 和 RHT 的安全性可能与神经生理学有关。我们总结了一些零散的实证研究，这些研究探讨了诸如利手性、眼球运动偏向和大脑偏侧化等神经生理学方面与 LHT 和 RHT 的安全性之间的可能联系，以及理论上 LHT 和 RHT 对哪些人更安全。令人惊讶的是，与 LHT 或 RHT 相关的道路交通碰撞事故的实证数据稀缺且存在局限性。尽管大约 50 年前就有人声称左行交通的国家碰撞率低于右行交通的国家，但我们缺乏对 LHT 或 RHT 国家的道路交通碰撞事故进行分析，这些分析考虑了可能相关的神经生理学因素。总的来说，我们预测 LHT（驾驶员坐在右侧）比 RHT 更安全。由于“交通规则”和神经生理学可能具有重要的未被认识到的“副作用”，我们建议（以及如何）检验这一理论。
