More importantly, unless you drive something the size of a bus, it doesn’t matter which side you park, it’ll still reach fine.

I have one from 1993 in the UK, but I have no idea whether that was a weird exception or if other colleges did it.

The US does it too, the other way around. They use fractions for a lot of things (3/8", half a foot, etc.) and then switch in decimals (like “2.5 inches”) when they think you’re not looking. Except for bullets for some reason which are in mm.