Samoa Switches to Driving on Left

I was reading the BBC online news about Samoa switching today to driving on the left side of the road. There was widespread concern that it would result in a lot of accidents and general mayhem.

“So we just wake up one morning and pull out of our driveways onto the other side of the road, do we?” says Tole’afoa Solomona Toa’iloa, who heads People Against Switching Sides (PASS). “Cars are going to crash, people are going to die, not to mention the huge expense to our small country.”

There were traffic jams but it was generally successful.

I looked up which countries drive on the left versus right. About 1/3 countries drive on the left including Britain, India, southern Africa, Japan, Australia. New Zealand and most of the South Pacific. Apparently Samoa switched to the left be the same as South Pacific neighbours and to be able to import lower cost used vehicles from Australia and New Zealand.

I also read a humorous article by journalist Gwynne Dyer called A Leftist (Driving) Triumph in Samoa with some of the politics and history of countries switching driving sides. He also told of when Newfoundland switched to driving on the right when joining Canada in 1949. The story is that the Newfoundland government was worried about how its people would handle the switch from left to right, until one minister solved the problem. “Let them get used to it a bit at a time,” he said. “The people whose names start with A to D can switch on Monday, E to K will switch on Tuesday....”