An Accident on the Way to the Beach—and Why the World Could Never Agree on One Standard

A Somber Scene on a Summer Drive

It was unbearably hot over the weekend.

I decided to take a drive to the beach for a change of pace. At my age, I no longer go there to swim. Walking along the shore and dipping my feet in the water for a moment is enough. Just feeling the sea breeze makes it feel like summer.

Before I reached the beach, however, I came across a rather sad scene.

At an expressway exit, a car had crashed into a guardrail. Beside it stood about five young men and women who appeared to be from Southeast Asia. Fortunately, no one seemed seriously injured, but they all looked stunned.

They had probably set out that morning excited about spending a day at the beach together. Instead, their holiday ended at an expressway exit.

I could not help feeling sorry for them.

When Habit Overrides What You Know

The scene reminded me of something that happened when I was younger and drove a rental car in the United States.

Americans drive on the right, while people in Japan drive on the left. I understood that perfectly well in my head. But habits are frighteningly powerful.

The moment you turn out of an intersection or parking lot, years of muscle memory can take over and try to steer you toward the familiar side of the road. I once nearly entered the wrong lane as a large truck approached from the opposite direction. I still break out in a cold sweat when I remember it.

That is why I cannot bring myself to blame visitors who have an accident while driving in Japan. Having nearly made the same mistake myself, I see it instead as a danger built into the system.

Why Was the World Never Standardized?

This led me to a more fundamental question: why does the world still have both right-hand and left-hand traffic?

If every country had adopted the same rule from the beginning, perhaps accidents like this would happen less often.

Of course, global standardization is no longer realistic. It would require changing road signs around the world, redesigning vehicles, and retraining billions of drivers. No one could bear the cost.

The Same Problem Appears Everywhere in IT

This kind of situation is routine in the technology industry.

Every engineer eventually encounters a system that makes them wonder, “Why was it designed this way in the first place?”

So why not fix it?

Because after a service has been running for 20 or 30 years, hundreds of other systems may depend on that strange design, while tens of thousands of users have adapted to it. At that point, the most rational choice is no longer to correct the design. It is to keep using it as it is.

Something can be technically wrong yet remain the right choice for society as a whole. That is the nature of technical debt.

Compatibility Is Often Stronger Than Better Design

The internet provides another example.

For decades, people have warned that IPv4 addresses would run out, and IPv6 was created as its successor. Yet more than 20 years later, IPv4 remains in active use.

Technical superiority and widespread adoption are two different things. When the entire world already operates on an existing system, compatibility often proves more powerful than a better design.

The Cost of Choices Made Long Ago

These were the thoughts running through my mind as I looked at the young people standing by the expressway.

More than a century ago, humanity took two different paths: driving on the right and driving on the left. We are still paying for that split around the world today.

Whether we are building roads or software systems, the least expensive option is to design them correctly from the start.

The trouble is that we usually discover the design was wrong only after everything has already been built.