Samoan motorists switch to driving on the left
Yesterday (Sept 7), Samoa's drivers switched from driving on the right to driving on the left. I've had Swedish friends recount the thrilling tale of .se's change, which involved midnight road-crews changing signs and repainting road-markers, and morning radio DJs exhorting all and sundry to remember to change over. The Samoans are changing over thanks to Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi who believes that this will save motorists money by allowing them to import cars from (relatively) nearby Australia and New Zealand.
The government has run a months-long campaign to educate drivers, and designated a practice lot. Monday and Tuesday have also been declared public holidays to get drivers used to the change, Hunter said.Outcry as Samoa motorists prepare to drive on left (via Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media)"But it's when everybody goes back to work on Wednesday, that's the worry," he added.
Samoa and its closest neighbor, American Samoa, have been driving on the right side of the road since German occupation between 1900-1914.
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I bet Obama pressured them into making the switch. He'll stop at no end to advance his leftist agenda!
Tip your waiters folks.
well now, Mr.Interlocutor, how far did he pressure them?
Driving on the right - if it's good enough for the Nazis, it's good enough for us!
bkd
(Godwinned in 3!)
"On 3 September 1967, Frida (later of ABBA) won the Swedish national talent competition, "New Faces", arranged by record company EMI and held at Skansen, Stockholm. The song she chose to sing was "En Ledig Dag" ("A Day Off"). The first prize in this contest was a recording contract with EMI Sweden. Unbeknownst to Lyngstad, the winner of the contest was also expected to appear the same evening in the country's most popular TV show at that time, Hylands Hörna. This happened on the same day Sweden switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right side. Driving on that day was discouraged, so most of the nation was watching TV that night. Frida performed her winning song live. (The performance can be seen on Frida - The DVD)
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Awesome. Can't wait to start importing some rad cars from Samoa.
Is there any country in the world that drives on the left that has a land border with a country that drives on the right? If so, what does the border crossing look like?
"If you are planning to visit the UK and happen to come from one of the many countries that drive on the wrong side of the road, the following advice, direct from the Ministry of Transport, is for you:
“Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.”
http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm
Trivia (from a Swedish colleague):
In .SE, the Govt also hired hordes of school children for a little pocket money, to stand at intersections and point drivers to the "right" side after the turn.
The side of the car the driver sits on doesn't determine which side of the road the car is physically capable of driving on.
If I took an American car to the UK, for example, and drove on the correct side of the road, would the engine leap off its mountings and gallop away? Would the car explode? Would I get beaten to death by an angry mob?
MRFOO
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Countries_driving_on_the_left_or_right.svg
I haven't been to any of those land borders.
@7 For most people it's easier when you drive the appropriate car, since your line of sight / field of view is in accordance with all the other traffic.
For example, if you take a British car to mainland Europe, you'll be sitting at the right and driving on the right - which also means that half of what you see is the sidewalk with little interest to you.
And overtaking means that you have to drive far more to the left to see if you can pass safely.
All cars there must now drive on the left side of the road.
If everything goes well, next week the trucks and motorcycles will switch to the left side as well.
It's those Brits again.
They have chosen the superior side.
I don't think land borders are much of an issue, all the borders affected look to be in remote areas, between relatively undeveloped countries so it'll more likely be a dirt track than an interstate.
OK--Which side does the passenger get out of and why? Does the passenger get out in the middle of the road??? NO
'If I took an American car to the UK, for example, and drove on the correct side of the road..... would I get beaten to death by an angry mob?'
If it was a Hummer you might....
In the UK they're phasing in driving on the right.
During the first week only cars will drive on the right, during the second week lorries will also drive on the right...
The Mini Clubman has an extra door to assist rear seat passengers, but only on one side. It's the wrong side for the country where it's made, but probably financially sensible for BMW, and UK kids will just have to be a bit more careful when getting out into traffic.
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/207957/mini.html
Actually, it's not too hard to drive a LHD car on the left and vice versa (ask a rural USPS delivery driver), and I can't see the UK changing to match Europe, as there are over 26 million cars on UK roads with RHD, plus all the signage and road markings to change.
It would be great for australia to eport cars that are built by ford or holden and toyota with right hand drive production lines in the factory and it would create jobs for australians even building buses in right hand drive and trucks as well like australia exports cars to new zealand and fuji as well it would be interstring if new calidonia switched to right hand drive on the left hand side of the road
Australia has lots of old right hand drive buses from bus companys that they want to sell this would be great to export them to samoa that can't be used of there age for public passenger vicheles but it would be great for samoa's public transport a lot of the old buses have recondition motors and running gear on them and ive been on lots of old buses here in brisbane and with the old recondition motors on them you would think its a new motor in them and the bus company's around australia will love the idea to sell them off and the truck company's will be the same to sell off the old trucks but they will have to use to change gears with there left hand and motor bikes it wouldn't be a problem
The UK won't switch sides. For more expensive than changing all the road signs is modifying all the motorway junctions etc -- many aren't complete, e.g. maybe you can only leave the motorway going north or whatever, and many aren't symmetrical -- a short ramp off the motorway is OK, but can't be reversed into a short ramp on.
More expensive still would be the behaviour modification therapy needed for a significant proportion of the population.
The main reason for fighting both world wars was the freedom to drive on the left. Besides which, it was Napoleon who decided on driving on the right, and we whupped his arse as well.
You think the Daily Fail's going to get upset when we adopt the Euro? It'll be nothing to changing the side of the road we drive on.
as a representative of the english nation, i'd like to appologise to the samoans. i'm sure it's somehow our fault you had to drive on the wrong side for so long.
i'm fairly sure we switched to driving horse and cart on the left to annoy Napoleon, so maybe it's France's fault.
You've got everything backwards! Samoa is switching to driving on the left, as most of their vehicles are Australian and New Zealand imports.
#5,#8:
Malaysia (left) to Thailand (right)
No idea what the border looks like. Next time I am in .my I will try to take a look.
I tried to look at border crossings:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=malaysia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=33.626896,56.513672&ie=UTF8&ll=6.696416,100.178935&spn=0.002573,0.003449&t=h&z=18
...but I can't see anything special from that perspective.
To ease the transition, I suggest first trying every other block.
Driving on the left hand side of the road makes more sense.
Here's why:
You give way to traficants from the right.
In countries with left-hand traffic, this always applies.
In countries with right-hand traffic, this does not apply to roundabouts - there you are required to give way to traficants from the left.
Here is a list of side of road changes at borders.
The other issue with the cars on the wrong side of the road is that the headlights shine the wrong way.
A car built to drive on the left has headlights that put out the most light onto the left hand carriage way and less towards the on-coming traffic.
When you dirve it on the right it's shining directly into the oncoming traffic. We have to put special stickers onto the lights to try and correct this
I visited Burma in the late 90s (and yes, we tried very hard to contribute as much as possible to the local citizens and as little as possible to the regime) and found it bizarre that although they drove on the right, almost all the vehicles were right-hand drive, since they were almost all second-hand from countries where they drive on the left.
It didn't seem to be much of an issue for passenger cars. But almost all the buses had their passenger doors on the left, so passengers boarded and were discharged in the middle of the street rather than the curb. And almost every large truck I saw had both a driver and a "spotter" sitting shotgun to make sure they didn't hit anything.
Secret life @#3: In music-historical hindsight, what they _should_ have been doing, was to be gearing up for the Jimi Hendrix concert! He played in Stockholm on September 4. :)
The Swedish switch-over is interesting in a lot of ways. One of them being that Sweden still had their steering wheels on the left, when they were driving on the left!
Another funny thing is that they voted NO to switch in referendums - Twice! Finally the government said "Screw it, we'll do it anyway" :)
Left hand side riding is more natural - if you have a whip in your hand, you don't hit pedestrians walking along the pavement.
English motorways are designed, apparently, for left and right and driving - it's to do with design of the exits. I think this was because NATO would take them over if there were a world war.
The entire world should adopt a standard. The idea that driving on the left is somehow better appears self-serving to me.
Ill Lich: Let's get everyone over to the metric system first..
I think its telling in some way that the Samoan government has also banned alcohol during the switch-over. It would be harder to remember which side of the road to drive on when you are drunk I guess...save that for when you really have your bearings, Samoa.
I heard the Swedish switch happened not in the morning but mid-afternoon. They knew that sleepy people would just do what they normally did every morning, so they waited until a lot of cars were on the road, everyone stopped at the appointed time, switched sides,a nd then moved off.
Seems the sensible way to do it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-_and_left-hand_traffic#Changing_sides_at_borders - about crossing borders. Crossing seems complicated lol