Or are they all left-side drive?
I don’t know the answer to your question specifically but I will say that many specialty vehicles have the seats in all sorts of unusual locations because of the task they perform and it is irrelevant where in the world they are as far as I know.
Rubbish trucks are a good example of this, often being drivable from either side (at least where I am). That allows the driver to better see their colleagues and bins on the roadside while driving in the suburbs, but switch to the regular position for driving to and from a landfill site.
Also USPS (mail trucks in US) have steering wheel on the opposite side as they frequently stop and leave the vehicle to deliver the mail.
Hi, I drove a LLV for a couple years! It’s actually so, when they stop at a mailbox, they don’t have to leave or lean across the vehicle to reach out to a mailbox on the right side of the road. It is also easier to hop out for packages, as you said, but if I recall the volume of packages was much lower when the vehicles were designed, so they were more focused on delivering letters from one mailbox to the left.
Another fun fact, LLVs are one of the only street legal vehicles in the US with a shorter front wheel axle than the back! This makes turning much tighter so the driver can pull a full U-turn on any standard road without needing a Y-turn, since visibility is pretty awful behind the vehicle when backing up. This also makes them pretty fun to drive.
If they did so, they’d also require Zamboni drivers to do their circuits in the opposite direction, counterclockwise instead of clockwise. They like to drive along the boards on the driver’s side so they can tuck up against the wall gently & see just how close they’re getting.
Just gonna say I never hear about hockey players from UK or India.
Scotland has a fair few curling clubs, which I guess would be as likely to use them?
Not at all. Zambonis make ice perfectly flat which isn’t what curlers want at all. Curling clubs have ice guys who’s job it is to ‘pebble’ the ice by spritzing it with water. The little bumps are essential for making the rock curl.
Ahh, fair enough. I knew about the pebbling from that one time I went curling while I was in school, but I had assumed that they used something at least zamboni-adjacent to level the ice before doing that. Turns out the method is to just flood it
But I have heard of international figure skaters
The UK has an ice hockey league - not sure how many natives are in the teams though. Hockey is massive in (parts of) India - but they tend to play the version without ice…
I live in a right-side drive country.
The first time I ever heard of a Zamboni was when Ryan Renolds drove one over a guy in the first Deadpool movie.
Coo, loo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo! Take off to the Great White North Take off, it’s a beauty way to go
I thought I remembered him also driving one in Van Wilder, but I guess I was just remembering that an ice rink was featured at one point.
Zamboni himself would have wanted it that way.
Slapshot III - The Robo Zamboni Awakens
