Strange

Samoa Switches Sides of the Road

by Jordan Yerman | September 7, 2009 at 02:12 pm

131 views | 12 Recommendations | 2 comments

As of today, Samoans drive on the left-hand side of the road. A public holiday was declared for today and tomorrow, so people could basically re-learn the rules of the road without having to rush to work. Also, nightclubs are closed this week. The move was made to bring Samoa (which is an island nation) in line with nearby island nations New Zealand and Australia. It's worth pointing out that one cannot drive between the three, so there was never really a risk of having to swerve from one side of the road to the other upon arriving in Samoa.

It seems like a lot of effort with no obvious real-world payoff. A "we welcome right-hand-drive cars" advertising campaign would be far less traumatic, I would think, but I'm not an infrastructure expert. Also, what about buses? Won't existing buses now be opening their doors in the middle of the street?

Actually, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. The Samoan government realizes that it's about to willingly cause hundreds of car crashes, right?

There are at least 7,000 Samoans living in New Zealand and another 30,000 in Australia. The government hopes they will send their smaller fuel-efficient left-hand drive cars to relatives in Samoa, thereby precluding the need to buy big American gas guzzler cars that are typically right-hand drive.

I don't really understand: surely you can drive a right-hand-drive car on the right-hand side of the street: we have many Japanese imports on the roads here in Vancouver and it's not a problem. (Having said that, the driving standard here is so poor that you could have the driver's seat facing the rear of the vehicle and it wouldn't stand out in traffic)

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A. Tran

at 15:29 on September 7th, 2009

I was wondering about the dangerous consequences of this unusual move to save money.

The_Cynic

at 18:24 on September 7th, 2009

(Having said that, the driving standard here is so poor that you could have the driver's seat facing the rear of the vehicle and it wouldn't stand out in traffic)

Slightly off topic, but when my wife told her drivers Ed that her husband was English and had taught her how to drive - he said that she would pass first time of taking the exam. A guy in the class asked how could he be so sure that she would pass - they all had the same chance surely! The instructor said "Look - even I couldn't pass the British driving test!" To give him credit though - he is on a panel to bring driving standards up 20 notches. :) Driving in Canada is scary!