Photos Pre-Switch

Town clock signs. 

Salelologa road protest.

Defying the stop sign.

Town clock no rules.

Wall Street Journal- comes to Samoa

Ethiopian interest

Even Ethiopia is interested in Samoa's road switch.

http://www.ethiopianreview.com/articles/25475

WSJ

Even the wall street journal has given the road switch air time.

 

In the article the P.M. says "By aligning with Australia and New Zealand, in Samoa it will be easier for poor Samoans to get cheap hand-me-down cars from the 170,000 or so Samoans who live in those two countries."

But the best part is where he says "It could also help more people escape tsunamis"

RRRRight! Tsunamis, that's why we are switching sides .. the logic is brilliant! 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125086852452149513.html#mod=article-outset-box

New Road Code

The government of Samoa has printed 5000 new road code booklets, however the department of motor vehicles only had ONE (1).. with some strange anomalies.

First off, even thought the road switch only become an official idea in 2008 - this road code is from "2007" ?? weird eh?

 

But it was created for left hand driving 

The strange thing is that even if they could find the other 4999 copies of the Code, there are over 20,000 drivers in the country, so I guess you have to share with 3 of your buddies.

A big controversy is the bus stop idea, there have never been bus stops in Samoa, when you want to get off the bus you tap the side of the bus with you coins and the drive lets you off at your house.  One  man was quoted saying " we already have bus stops. At my house! Do I look like I'm going to carry a basket of taro to the bus stop? Well I'm not!"

By far the BEST part of the new code is the drinking and driving section.  There was an announcement on the radio the other day informing people that the police would start enforcing the drink driving rules as well as the seat belt rule for the first time on the day of the switch.  And to drive home the concept of how dangerous drinking and driving is... 

A picture of ex US president BUSH (notice the W on the licence plate)!! How awesome

The wider world

While the road switch in Samoa has been getting attention regionally for a few months now, the world is now watching, not, perhaps with great expectations, but mostly due to the curiosity factor.
Changing sides of the road is a rare thing for a country to undertake. Especially a developing country that is not changing sides for safety reasons. The main reason(of several strange ones)that the government provides is that cars are cheaper to import from New Zealand and since New Zealand drives on the left, so should Samoa.
Now this is odd for 3 reasons:
1) Cars were imported from New Zealand up until 2005 when the government banned them due to safety concerns.
2) Cars from New Zealand could be imported without changing the direction of traffic.
3) There has been no analysis that has shown cars are actually cheaper when imported from New Zealand.
To top all of this off, is the fact that at the time of the road switch in 16 days there will be 18800 Right side vehicles (the side that is normal in the United States and Europe) and about 4000 left side vehicles (the side that is normal in New Zealand and India). This means that 80% of the cars will go from being on the "right" side of the road to the "wrong" one over night. Well actually at 6am on Monday morning.
So, obviously, with a lack of clear reasoning and a very costly and dangerous government mandated change, the world is curios. Unfortunately this is the sort of curiosity that people express at formula 1 races where they are curious to see who will crash and burn ...
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/08/14/driving_on_left/index.html

Starting in 1928 with Portugal, close to 40 countries have changed the side of the road traffic drives on.  There have been several reasons countries have switched sides, mostly to conform with neighbors, as it increases safety at borders, but also due to new colonial governments (Taiwan switched when China took over in 1946) or freedom from colonial powers, like in the case of Gambia, Nigeria and others.  One of the most interesting reasons to switch sides was given by Burma, in 1970, when on the advice of a wizard the Burmese switched from left to right.   Burma may have used unorthodox logic (or lack there of) to justify their switch, but they were keeping with the logical tradition of joining the majority of the world on the right side of the road.  Only Mozambique has switched from the right side of the road to the left, due to the fact that the majority of their neighbors including South Africa,  drive on the left, however their old colonial overloads (the Portuguese)  switched to the right back in the 20’s so Mozambique was one confused country.   

Now another country is bucking the trend, becoming confused and joining the minority, and its not doing this due to transnational boundaries- it doesn’t have any.  It’s not doing it for safety reasons, all logic indicates this move will be quite dangerous, actually.  In fact based on what information is available the decision to switch sides was based on very little information at all, making Samoa more like Burma in the way this decision was made. 

Check out the great map from Wikipedia for an illustration.

About 66% of the worlds population drives on the right hand side of the road.  On the map below  red represents right hand side and blue .. well those are the left handers.