Posted on 08/26/2009 10:42:39 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
The small Pacific island country of Samoa is suffering a case of national road rage over government plans to switch to driving on the left early next month.
The nation of around 180,000 people is due to change from driving on the right-hand side on September 7, in what is believed to be the first switch since Nigeria, Ghana and Yemen shifted to the right in the 1970s and Sweden did so in 1967.
Since the government announced the plan in 2007, huge protest marches have been held, more than a sixth of the population has signed a petition calling for the changeover to be reversed, and a court is expected to rule on its legality later this week.
Local bus owners are furious over having to build new doors on the opposite side of their vehicles so passengers don't have to get off in the middle of the road.
At least one village is threatening to stop traffic passing through after the changeover.
But pugnacious Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi has no intention of backing down from the switch on September 7, when a two-day holiday will start to ease the changeover.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.....
Le Anapapa Laki, a former anti-government legislator, says he faces a bill equivalent to 18,500 US dollars for each of his 14 buses to switch the doors to the other side.
“My business has been handed down from our grandfather to our father and then to us,” he said.
“Now I cannot continue if the switch takes place.”
Another owner Nanai Tawan said the government was treating bus operators like fools.
“In protest I would rather bring my buses to parliament and burn them there for parliament to see what they are doing to us.”
From the article.
They sound pretty P.O.ed.
Those Pacific islanders throw a pretty good riot when they want to. Papua New Guineau pretty much got burned down a while back.
we should be in a greater uproar over Obama driving the entire country to the left.
Driving on the left side of the road in the UK and Australia was weird and took some getting use to. However, in the BVI they drive on the left side of the road and almost all the cars are left side drive cars.
Pure insanity with lots of mountain roads along the coast.
It makes it a real bitch to pass a slow chicken truck on one of those winding roads.
I don’t understand the purpose for the change. Does anyone know?
From the article.
“The switch in the side of the road for driving is a policy for the development and improvement of life for all the people of Samoa,” he said in a televised address to the nation earlier this month.
Tuilaepa says changing sides to be in line with Australia and New Zealand means some of the 170,000 Samoans living in those countries — which drive on the left — will be able to send used right-hand drive cars home to their relatives.
Cars would become cheaper in Samoa as a result and more people in rural areas would be able to get vehicles to help develop their land, he argues.
That’s the best argument they could come with, I guess.
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I’d figured I’d best not ping you.
What do want to bet that the prime minister, or one of his cronies, owns a business that imports right-hand drive cars?
The big danger in such a switch is the ingrained habit of driving in the right lane when others are using the new left scheme. It's a recipe for head on collisions as the collision avoidance logic is miswired and infrequently practiced.
I bet that was a fun week!
I agree. I got used to driving on the opposite side of the road, from the opposite side of the car, and shifting with my left hand...... But I just could not get used to my rear view mirror being upper left rather than upper right. After several weeks of driving that way, flew home, was tired, and absolutely could not drive in the states without a full nights sleep.
Isn’t Japan left side driving also?
America should do it. Be a better stimulus than cash for clunkers. Imagine the jobs it would create.
Obama is planning to do this in the US to stimulate the auto industry since right hand drive cars will be illegal the day after the law is rammed through at 3 am. Owning a right hand car will be punishable by death.
It will also take the focus off of health care.
But the real reason is that Teddy Kennedy always wanted the US to drive on the right like they do in dear old Ireland.
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