'Normally' (depending on your definition of 'normal') it is clutch on the left, brakes in the middle and accelerator on the right foot.
Funny how they would do that different than even in the UK, where all cars I've seen had their indicator stalks on the left.
It seems to be more of a regional thing than anything else.
Makes me wonder what Japan is like... (they also drive on the left).
BTW, you can still find some old cars on the roads here which have the gears on the left hand side of the steering wheel :O
I have one like that :), not sure about your definition of 'older', but it is from 2004. It's a RHD Copen.
I've driven quite a few different cars (mainly UK, some Spanish/French hire cars, SEAT/Peugot) as we used to hire instead of owning and so I'd drive a different make/model every time. They differ in indicator placement. Similarly some cars use a stalk (rotating end switch) for headlights whilst others use a dashboard mounted dial switch. Some cars have a stalk-end switch for the horn whilst others use buttons either side of the steering wheel and others use the whole steering wheel center (this appears to be less common now as it has an air-bag in it though Renaults have always had a stalk based horn from what I can tell).
My current car, a Citroen Xsara Picasso (right hand drive) has a left-stalk, the car I learnt in (many years ago) was a Nissan Micra 1.0 and had a right-stalk indicator. I'm afraid I can't remember on the others to be certain but they definitely have been a mixture. I think the Renault Megane Scenic we had prior to this had the indicator right-stalk as I clearly remember putting the wipers on when lane changing - but that might well be that the hire cars we used around that time (2 different Vauxhalls) had the indicator that side, not sure.
On Japanese cars ( right hand drive ), all the stalks are reversed from the exported left hand drive model. This means that Japan cars have the turn signal on the right, upward motion signaling a left turn and downward a right turn. The shifter is of course in the middle console, so is on the drivers left. The wiper control stalk is on the left. The ignition control is on the right.
I am curious if the motorcycle controls are reversed though. I guess I'll find that out in a few months.
Thank you for the info!
Much easier to remember any turn indicator for cars is always in the direction of the turn of the steering wheel. This helped me immensely when I moved back from Oman (cars and roads the American way) to India (everything the UK way). And also, this way I only had to re-learn the location of the indicator stalk, so that I could avoid flipping on the windshield wipers :-)
p.s: Are there ANY cars that do not follow the "direction of steering wheel" rule for their indicator stalks? Would be interesting to know this..
e.g. To turn left, you turn the steering wheel counter-clockwise and likewise with the turn indicator. The 'top' or 'bottom' of the wheel is irrelevant.