Samoa changes from Right Hand to Left Hand

The island nation of Samoa in the South Pacific has taken a very bold step. Not since the 1970’s has any country been so brave and confident in changing the side of the road that they drive on. Business owners have changed the names of their business, and even countries have changed their names, and that is problematic enough, and expensive in the extreme, but to change from one side of the road to the other seems like a suicide mission.

The Samoan islands are located approximately halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. There are two major islands, one was formerly known as American Samoa and the other as German Samoa. The total land mass is slightly smaller than Rhode Island in the United States, and the population is about 179,000. Islanders speak their own native Samoan as well as English. They gained their independence on July 1, 1962.

The Samoan islands have had a very chequered past that at times has brought islanders into sharp dispute with their colonizers. From the end of World War II the New Zealanders, more than anyone else have had more of a controlling force upon the lives of the islanders, although people from the former American Samoa tend to emigrate to Hawaii and the United States, and to continue American culture.

The need for making such a major change in the driving habits of the country was driven by the fact of their betwixt and between situation. Importing cars from Hawaii added an exorbitant cost to vehicles. They did this because of the need to have cars that conformed with right hand side of the road driving practise. However, cars imported from New Zealand, where driving is on the left meant that the cost was a fraction of American made cars, and it also brought Samoa into line with the driving habits of their neighbours.

To get an entire nation of people to change from driving on one side to the other must surely be a nightmare that most countries would not contemplate. It is difficult enough when we go abroad to always remember to be on the correct side. Mistakes usually mean death, so that is the gravity of the matter.

To prepare for such an event no doubt there would have been an intense period of education leading up to the change date and time, and it must be ongoing until it would appear that the message has sunk in. Wisely, the government announced a two-day holiday when people would simply go for a drive to get used to the idea. Secondly, and perhaps more important, they closed all bars for a three-day period and prohibited the drinking of alcohol and driving. Of course, every country does that as a permanent measure, but for the event having a clear head would definitely be a help.

At 6:00am on Monday 7th September the Prime Minister addressed the nation on radio and gave the official “let the games begin!” The roads were saturated with security personnel, and at the signal all traffic came to a complete halt where they were. Ideally, most people with their vehicles should have still been at home at that moment, but if not there came the very careful changeover from right to left. Needless to say, this created another problem that will eventually rectify itself. That is to say that all the left-hand drive cars now placed their drivers on the wrong side of the lane, which is not a hopeless situation, but extra care will have to be given until those cars are scrapped.

For the residents the whole thing was a very unusual parade. Roads were lined with spectators watching the process. The only incident was caused by a group that called itself “People Against Switching Sides” who were convinced this action would bring about chaos and blood on the islands roads. They protested by blocking some roads for hours, refusing to let the change begin. However, when they heard that elsewhere things were going smoothly they relented and allowed traffic to pass.

The first day passed without any accidents, and that must surely be some kind of record. No doubt in the future there will be accidents as people relax and forget, but it will work in the long term. This is not just an action that is important to Samoa. My own country of Bermuda, as well as many others, could well benefit from making exactly such a move. We drive on the left and we get our vehicles with steering wheels on the right from England and Japan. However, most of our tourists come from America, and once on the island they hire mopeds and some promptly go out on the roads and drive on the right. As a practical matter it makes sense for us to drive on the same side as those countries from where the greatest numbers of our visitors come from, namely The U.S. and Canada.

Meanwhile, the only country out of sync in Europe is the United Kingdom. It is one thing for them to insist that they will not give up the British Pound, but they are part of the European Common Market, and to doggedly maintain a system of driving that is different to all their neighbours is perhaps taking one’s independence too far.

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael