海外「道路を渡る前に必ず左右を確認してください」

When you’re a child, you’ll be taught in traffic safety classes that you should check “right, left, right” when you cross the street.
However, you won’t be taught much (or even if you were taught, you wouldn’t understand or remember) why it’s in the order of “right, left, right,” and you’ll have a lot of questions.

“Left, right, left”. Can’t we do that?
Isn’t “right, left” enough?
“Right, left, right, left,” I don’t have to check the left twice, either?
In addition to answering this question, I would like to think about why I should not ride my bicycle backwards (on the right side).

Why can’t the left go first?
Let’s start with this question.

Why do you check the right side first?
Can’t we check the left side first?

Cars come from both right and left, so you have to check both.
Then, you can check the left first, not the right first.
It seems natural to think so.

But in conclusion, this is not good.
Because,

The car comes from the right.

Oh, it’s coming from the left, right? You may think that, but that’s a story on the way across the street.
When I’m about to cross the street, the car will definitely only come from the right!

This can be seen at a glance in the actual figure. In Japan, cars are on the left side, so when you’re about to cross the street, they always come from the right side.
So, first of all, you have to check the right side to ensure your safety.
It is sufficient to check the left side even after checking the right side to ensure your safety.

Can’t we just say “right, left”?
Then, I understand that I have to check the right side first.
But if that’s the case

Isn’t it enough to say “right, left”?
Why bother checking the right twice?

Indeed, if you look to the right to ensure your own safety and check the left, it seems enough to confirm.
Then why do we have to look further to the right?

One thing that is often said is, “A car may be coming from the right while checking the left.”
This is correct in a way, but it’s a little insufficient to explain.
for the following questions (counterarguments?) naturally arise.
“Then, while I’m checking the right again, there might be a car coming from the left, and then I’ll have to check the left again. Then there might be another car coming from the right. Then I must keep checking with you indefinitely, that…?”

The question is reasonable, and I cannot answer it if I explained it as before.

Now, back to the first question, why do we need to check the right twice?
It’s,

The meaning of confirmation is different between the first confirmation and the second confirmation.

What I mean is,

The first check is to make sure that the car is not coming from the right before crossing
The second check is to make sure that there is no car coming from the right on the way after crossing
So。

In other words, the second confirmation is a time-sensitive (English completion tense).
To make it easier to understand, the second confirmation is not the end once you have confirmed it, but you have to keep checking it since you started crossing.
You have to keep checking because the car might come suddenly while you’re crossing.

However, if that happens, of course the next question will arise.

Then, if you’re crossing, there’s a possibility that the car will come from the left side, so don’t you have to check the left side as well?

We will answer this question together with the following questions.

Don’t you have to check the left side twice?