Cyclocross brakes: shouldn't rear be on LHS?

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I've been around a few shops and looked at a good few cyclocross bikes, but they all felt wrong. Wanting something lighter, more modern, where I don't find sourcing spares a nightmare. Final straw is I can't get decent tires for it now (English clubman size, the shops only have things for wheelchairs). Anyways tried loads of bikes but none felt right, yet could not work out what was wrong, so took my trusty old steel thing from the '70s to see if they could measure it all up and see if they could find something a similar size.

At the shop with my old bike side by side with a new one it was obvious what was wrong with all the new bikes: the brakes were the wrong way round!

Yeps, every single shop I've been in had the back brake on the right hand side. Which explains why they felt so wrong. Enquired of the assistant and he agreed it seemed wrong but they were only allowed to sell them that way around.

But surely, it's a little suicidal for a cyclocross bike to have the front brake on the left hand side?

well, all the bicycles ive ridden (some from the 70's and earlier) have all had rear brake on right, front brake on left...

Yes, for a bike on the road, mixing it with traffic, you want want the rear brake on the RHS, but I'm on about a cyclocross bicycle. In cyclocross when you dismount you jump to the left, and when running you carry the bike on your right shoulder and hold the left hand brake to stop the left pedal jabbing you if parts of the bike catch on anything.