Lefthandedness

The petition is entitled consider legislation to support left handed people within the UK and the explanatory notes say

"many manufacturers do not cater for gifted people of this country who are left handed we require that the government bring in legislation to end the discrimination towards those who are primarily LEFT HANDED.IT SHOULD BE COMPULSORY TO BE OFFERED LEFT HANDED ALTERNATIVES FOR ALL ITEMS SOLD WITHIN THE U.K."

This is quite an important issue to me: I'm lefthanded, and I did my MSc thesis on usability and things ... I care about it a lot.

There are lefthanders who turn to other lefthanders and say they can't imagine why we have problems with $whichever-righthanded-tool, because they find it easy. My housemate Ian's lefthanded but has no problem with a righthanded tin-opener, for example. Not that he's offensive about my inability to use one, unlike some people I've talked to. But anyway - it's not really a binary thing: you're either lefthanded or righthanded; there are degrees. I'm pretty strongly left-dominant and there are many tasks I just can't do righthanded. Or can but it either takes ages or is done badly or both.

I can get all sorts of lefthanded things: scissors of all kinds; fountain pens; even rulers and tape-measures; tin-openers and potato peelers; computer equipment ... (Anything Left-handed is my prefered supplier.)

It is not discrimination for manufacturers to not make things lefthanded, however. It's simple economics. Even if 10% of the population is lefthanded, something like half of those are sufficiently ambidextrous to use righthanded products. Setting up for a potentially very different product for perhaps 5% of the market is just not economically viable. Legislating for it would be silly - it would drive costs up for everyone.

Now, if you wanted legislation to help you, perhaps the answer would be to ask for some kind of disability allowance to be permissible to offset the increased costs of the things one can buy.