dont know why people cant refer to driver sider or passenger side, lets make it a little more difficult...the left hand side could be driver or passenger side , depends whether you are in the car or standing in front of your motor
Convention states that the perspective of components is as seen from someone sitting in the driver's seat.
That said, people posting are not authors or editors of repair manuals and will sometimes use a different perspective. This is why additional qualifiers are required.
BTW, this is a Talk-quality thread.
Good luck in your searches.
If you post on your thread again, try to answer the questions people ask you. Otherwise no one can help much (and you have an outstanding audience with JRichker, Joel, et al).
As others have said, the convention is to use left and right from the driver's position. This is used because most factory's build left hand and right hand drive vehicles. Using passenger and drivers side would get very confusing.
Tractor Trailers are different. They refer to the "Left Side" as "Road Side" & the "Right Side" as "Curb Side". It throws you off when your looking at an estimate for a Truck.