Turning left

[ladyofastolat]

I've just reading something about school library design, and have come across the sentence, "Market research shows that faced with no clear direction, most people in the UK turn left." There's no source given, and I can't find anything online, so I have no idea what the evidence for this is, of what "most people" means. However, thinking about, I think that I do indeed default to turning left.

Is this because English is written from left to right? If I entered a room at an exhibition that had information panels around the perimeter wall, I'd expect the panels - like the words upon them - to be read from left to right, so I'd turn left. Do people from countries where writing goes from right to left tend to turn right?

Or is it related to driving on the left? Is it because turning left feels unobstructive, while turning right, even when on foot, feels like cutting across the traffic? Are people in all those countries that drive on the right less likely than people in the UK to turn to the left?

Or is it because turning left when you enter a large room will take you clockwise around the room?

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I think I find it more natural to look to the right, but I think if I was faced with five people at a bar, and no idea who came first, it would feel most natural to serve them in order starting from my left, since I read from left to right. Though of course the chaotic comings and goings of a bar would mean that it wasn't as simple as that.

I'm now thinking about bus stops. If there's a bus stop with one person standing at it, does the queue tend to form to the left or right of that person?