Samoa switches to driving on left | Hacker News Reader

Samoa switches to driving on left

news.bbc.co.uk

35 pointsbluesmoon22 comments

Just a warning, this article is from September 2009

It does seem a pretty random sort of subject, especially if it's actually "not news".

I was on holiday there at the start of the year. Most of the cars are still set up for driving on the right (driver sitting on the left). This makes it hard to judge the where center line is, so people tend to drift over it! Luckily the speed limit is 50km/h but it is still pretty "exciting" to be a front-seat passenger, it feels like a continuous game of chicken :)

It looks like it's not too late to switch back to right side and keep importing used buses from the US :-)

Actually I think the plan is to be able to import cheaper vehicles from Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

As for the buses in Samoa, they are truly unconventional and works of art: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/spider415/2/125... (see pics at the end)

And Ubuntu Lucid made people freak out about the change of sides for the window buttons?

This makes me think of how small countries can (potentially) have the ability to be so much more progressive than huge countries like the U.S. We can't even get on the frickin' metric system.

It's interesting they chose 6:00am rather than a less populated time. I think my first instinct would be to make the switch at like 3:00am on a Sunday a la DST, but I guess this way there was no avoiding it.

Possibly because 6am is the least populated daylight time. Switching at night would be far more dangerous, since it's hard to see what side of the road an oncoming pair of headlights is on.

And Samoa is in the tropics, so the sun rises at roughly 6am every day of the year.

I think it would be best to do that sort of thing when you can prepare a good chunk of your populace to really try it out. "Hey everyone, start driving on the left on your morning commute tomorrow!" That way, you have a concerted effort to do it right, and lots of people driving on one side or the other would reinforce the behavior. That's all as opposed to having a few bleary-eyed drivers in the wee hours potentially get a surprise.

I come from mainland Europe where we drive on the right, and I was in the UK couple of months ago, and was forced (due to the volcano) to drive from London to Glasgow. At first it was all really wired and scary, but once I drove off the rent-a-car parking lot onto a road where there ware other cars it was easy. My point is that other cars help you if you "suddenly" have to drive on the other side of the road. I did, however, drove a car with the steering wheel on the right side, so that might help (unlike here where the driver sits at the edge of the road).

Sweden switched at 6 AM after banning nearly all traffic between 1 AM and 6 AM.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

I've always wondered why everyone can't drive on the same side of the road? That would make automobile production much more efficient. Is there a certain reason England decided against driving on the left side of the road?

America invented the car, not the buggy.

No. Karl Benz, a German, is regarded as the inventor of the first automobile.

Thank you for the factual correction. My point still remains, however, that driving wasn't invented here.

They do drive on the left...

I actually meant the right... with the rest of Europe on the other side, they're the odd ones out.

We have no direct road links with the rest of Europe. Even the Channel Tunnel has no road: to take a car across you drive onto a train and off it at the other end.

I'd settle for electric sockets/plugs. Even within the European Union.

In my final year Theoretical Physics exam we were asked the question: If Ireland switched from driving on the left to driving on the right, what effect would this have on the Earth's rotation?

"Bus drivers have also protested that their doors will now open on the wrong side, in the middle of the road."

OK that is a good point .. Good luck to them !

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