I always believed advertising is the reflection of society. It reveals its aspiration, its problems, provides cue about how people think and in what they believe in. If you just take a moment to look with your eyes and mind, you may discover those “hidden mysteries” hiding behind images, words and colors which all together are full of meaning.

 Visiting foreign countries I really enjoyed glancing at all sorts of adverts and advertising strategies. Back in Russia I remembered being amazed about how different and old-fashioned adverts could seem to be whereas I remembered smiling watching at Thai very kitsch adverts, full of colors and cute shapes. What you always need to remember is that there are as many ways of seeing thing as there are people and what I may judge old-fashioned or kitsch may not seem at all for locals. Perhaps, adverts, way of thinking, way of dressing or eating, communicating and many things are shaped and conditioned by culture.

 Of course, while visiting London, I saw many kinds of adverts some that surprised me and some I didn’t really paid attention to. Yet, among all those, one truly caught my attention and I think deserved to be the subject of an article.

This advert is a poster published by the public transport company of London (DLR) among a series of others to warn people using the DLR about decency rules:

 I almost laughed when I first saw it; I was shocked to see such an advert in London. My first thought naturally was “dear I never saw that in France” and then I smile and told myself “It must be there for a reason…” which I believe is because the “incident” must have happened already. I then by curiosity made a little research and found out that in effect, this incident have had happened just a month before I arrived (Rob Virtue, 2013).

 If you watch a little bit closer you will see: “Saliva Recovery Kits are held on every train and will be used to identify offenders”. What better solution we can think of to prevent people from doing such an act? And this is when I told myself not “I never saw that in France” but “we would never see that in France”.

My personal opinion about this advert and what it tells about London is of course not “people spit on DLR staff in London” (which would be quite limited) but “this city has admitted a problem, found and invested in a real solution to it”. In few words, this small barely noticeable advert finally represented a real prove of this country’s efficiency…

I believe the advert would make quite an impression in France as there rarely is non-commercial or warning about decency rules advert. Those are often published somewhere but in non-attractive and written in tiny characters posters which absolutely no body reads…

Why does two-third (or three-quarters according to some) of the world drives on the right side? And why is the world divided over such a matter?

There clearly is a historical mystery to solve: in the past, most societies travelled in the left side of the road for a very simple reason: most people are right-handed and at the time swordsmen, warriors and knight kept moving on the left side of the road for their right arm to be able to hold a weapon to be able to face an eventual opponent.

The question now is how could it change over time? The answer came from France and United States in the 18^th century that began using large wagons (to transport farm products) pulled by pairs of horses or mules with no driver’s seat. Therefore, the driver had to seat on a left rear horse to use the right arm to guide the other horses. Naturally, the drivers preferred others to pass on the left for them to ascertain that the carriage will keep clear from being damaged.

 In addition to this explanation, in France, aristocracy drove carriage on the left side forcing peasants to the right. It only was after the French Revolution events in 1789, that aristocracy chose to keep low profile and drive on the right side. Yet, how this new custom, that became a law in 1794, could reach a global impact? The answer is Napoleon that imposed to the conquered nations the “rightism” traffic. This is how Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, Italy got to drive on the right side of the road while Great Britain and its colonies (India, Australasia and African British colonies) kept the ancestral tradition to drive left (more or less official in 1872, written as a law in 1924). Hitler then imposed the right-hand traffic to Czechoslovakia and Austria in 1930s. Finally, in Japan, that never has been part of British colonies, always drove left for the same reasons all society drove left in the first place and had no reasons to change. Over times several countries around the world changed sides such as Gibraltar, China, Sweden and Korea that changed to right-hand traffic for various reasons such as war and political influences.

 Recently (7 September 2009), Samoa, a Pacific island swap sides from the right to the left side of the road for economic reasons: open the territory to low cost autos from left-driving countries such as Australia and New Zealand.