Imagine if we did this!

anotherlostie · 08-09-2009 7:39pm #1

Samoa has become the first country since the 1970s to change the side of the road on which cars are driven.

At 0600 local time (1700 GMT) sirens sounded and drivers were told to move from the right side to the left.

Police said that no accidents had been reported in the first hours after the switch in the island nation despite predictions of chaos from critics.

The government brought about the change to bring Samoa into line with other South Pacific countries.

A two-day holiday was declared to ease traffic as people got used to the new rules. A three-day ban on alcohol sales was also introduced to deter accidents.

At 0600, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Lupesoliai Malielegaoi addressed the country on national radio.

All we want to see is how smooth it is and how safe it is and I think we've seen that this morning

"After this announcement you will all be permitted to move to the other side of the road, to begin this new era in our history," the New Zealand Herald quoted him as saying.

Emergency vehicles and government workers were reportedly stationed at every junction and corner but witnesses said the change happened smoothly.

"All we want to see is how smooth it is and how safe it is and I think we've seen that this morning. You see how cars are moving now, so to me it's good," a resident in the capital Apia told Reuters news .

However, the switch was briefly disrupted by a protest in a village on Savai'i - the bigger of the nation's two main islands.

The protesters blocked roads for several hours, but later allowed traffic to pass through.

The changeover survived a late legal appeal by the protest group People Against Switching Sides (Pass), who had argued that it would bring mayhem to the highways and byways of this remote South Pacific nation.

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

The Samoan government introduced the change to end its reliance on expensive, left-hand drive imports from America.

It hopes that Samoan expatriates in Australia and New Zealand will now ship used, more affordable vehicles back to their homeland.

Brave move, and hope the bus issue doesn't see people mown down. I have enough grief driving on the right in a left hand drive car without having to suddenly drive on the right in my right hand drive car. The East Europeans that stayed with their cars would have the last laugh!

kaizersoze · 08-09-2009 8:10pm

But we already drive on the left.....:p

Amtmann · 08-09-2009 8:27pm

The new motorways have been designed for the way we drive now, though.

Cleopatra12 · 08-09-2009 9:11pm

Furet wrote: »

The new motorways have been designed for the way we drive now, though.

Now in all fairness, with many of the hairbrained schemes that have been rolled out in the last 10 years, do you think the above fact would be an issue... tee hee! :P:P

Gonzo · 08-09-2009 9:49pm

We should have changed to driving on the right same as Europe over 20 years ago when we had no motorways. I hate the way our road system has to be very similar to the UK in terms of what side we drive on, the names of our roads and the general designs of our road signs (similar).

ardmacha · 08-09-2009 10:15pm

Given that the British continue to control the North Eastern part of the country, a change to the right was never feasible.

Kalashnikov_Kid · 08-09-2009 10:36pm

A two-day holiday was declared to ease traffic as people got used to the new rules. A three-day ban on alcohol sales was also introduced to deter accidents.

Haha chance! WTF would we do with ourselves for that long...

mikemac · 08-09-2009 10:39pm

A three-day ban on alcohol sales was also introduced to deter accidents.

I'm on boards since 2004 and EVERY year there is ranting about Good Friday. Same argument, same moaning and just a different year
Can you imagine if they banned the sale of alcohol for three days here

Who knows what would happen :eek:

FACEPALM · 08-09-2009 10:43pm

they said they will go from left to right in Ireland

They will start with Buses and 40ft Trucks

L1011 · 08-09-2009 10:47pm

Gonzo wrote: »

We should have changed to driving on the right same as Europe over 20 years ago when we had no motorways. I hate the way our road system has to be very similar to the UK in terms of what side we drive on, the names of our roads and the general designs of our road signs (similar).

Our directional signs are similar to the UK. Our traffic signs are nearly 100% different! Road markings are different too.

GAZ 1 · 08-09-2009 10:50pm

Probably won't happen soon but i would say its a probability in years to come, what with this one europe fits all thing going on!

Kalashnikov_Kid · 08-09-2009 11:01pm

Gonzo wrote: »

We should have changed to driving on the right same as Europe over 20 years ago when we had no motorways. I hate the way our road system has to be very similar to the UK in terms of what side we drive on, the names of our roads and the general designs of our road signs (similar).

Haha Id imagine what a shopping trip from Forkhill to Dundalk would have been like if that had happened. Would have been a logistical nightmare for the border community and a total waste of money in general.

Mrs OBumble · 08-09-2009 11:14pm

MYOB wrote: »

Our directional signs are similar to the UK. Our traffic signs are nearly 100% different! Road markings are different too.

It's a long time since I was in regional England, but I have difficulty imaging roads there as bad as Ireland has.

Out of interest: has anyone reading this thread ever been to Samoa?

bk · 08-09-2009 11:20pm

mikemac wrote: »

Can you imagine if they banned the sale of alcohol for three days here

Who knows what would happen :eek:

I'd imagine the worlds largest, country wide, three day house party.

Every off license in the country would be emptied in the days leading up to it.

Our grand children will still talk about the event 100 years later.

Sounds like a lot of fun

L1011 · 08-09-2009 11:22pm

JustMary wrote: »

It's a long time since I was in regional England, but I have difficulty imaging roads there as bad as Ireland has.

I'm not sure the relevance of quoting my post (which didn't mention road quality at all) there? But anyway, in general - non-primary roads in the UK are better than our non-primary roads.

But primary single carriageways in the UK are generally far worse than our primary single carriageways due to us having our own design standards. But the UK has a lot more primary roads than we do.

KevR · 09-09-2009 12:42am

Gonzo wrote: »

We should have changed to driving on the right same as Europe over 20 years ago when we had no motorways. I hate the way our road system has to be very similar to the UK in terms of what side we drive on, the names of our roads and the general designs of our road signs (similar).

Didn't some study a while back say that countries who drive on the left have a lower rate of accidents than those who drive on the right?

I'm glad we drive on the left and didn't change when we joined the EU. We're acting like Americans and being forced to be more European too much as it is. Ireland has lost enough of its identity already and if we were to switch to the right-hand side of the road to be similar to the rest of Europe I think it would be the final nail in Ireland's identity coffin for me personally, I would die a little bit inside (as weird and sad/pathetic as that sounds, it's true).

GAZ 1 · 09-09-2009 12:59am

What an irrelevant statistic when you think about it... I don't see how that would make any difference to accident rates.

Less countries drive on the left, lower amount of people, hence lower accident rates. A possibility?

I could be wrong.

L1011 · 09-09-2009 1:02am

GAZ 1 wrote: »

What an irrelevant statistic when you think about it... I don't see how that would make any difference to accident rates.

Less countries drive on the left, lower amount of people, hence lower accident rates. A possibility?

I could be wrong.

Accident rates are per capita so you are very, very wrong :P

GAZ 1 · 09-09-2009 1:08am

I suppose.... stupid comment! I'll put it down to fatigue :P

But still I dont see how driving on the right could lead to more accidents.

Ive lived on the continent for years and its basically just a mirror of how we drive here.

L1011 · 09-09-2009 1:12am

GAZ 1 wrote: »

I suppose.... stupid comment! I'll put it down to fatigue :P

But still I dont see how driving on the right could lead to more accidents.

Ive lived on the continent for years and its basically just a mirror of how we drive here.

IIRC its something to do with right hand dominance. Been a long time since I saw the study in to it.

emanresu · 09-09-2009 1:40am

"...The Samoan government introduced the change to end its reliance on expensive, left-hand drive imports from America.
It hopes that Samoan expatriates in Australia and New Zealand will now ship used, more affordable vehicles back to their homeland."

They could have used RHD cars from Australia and New Zealand all along
without changing over.
Traffic in the Virgin Islands (British & US) drives on the left,
but all their cars are imported from the USA, so they use LHD vehicles on the left-hand side of the road.

ANTIFA! · 09-09-2009 1:44am

KevR wrote: »

Didn't some study a while back say that countries who drive on the left have a lower rate of accidents than those who drive on the right?

I'm glad we drive on the left and didn't change when we joined the EU. We're acting like Americans and being forced to be more European too much as it is. Ireland has lost enough of its identity already and if we were to switch to the right-hand side of the road to be similar to the rest of Europe I think it would be the final nail in Ireland's identity coffin for me personally, I would die a little bit inside (as weird and sad/pathetic as that sounds, it's true).

so you're happy that what the british do, dictates what ireland does? ireland becoming european in a way shows much more indipendance than mirrowing everything the brits do.

GAZ 1 · 09-09-2009 1:59am

ANTIFA! wrote: »

so you're happy that what the british do, dictates what ireland does? ireland becoming european in a way shows much more indipendance than mirrowing everything the brits do.

At the end of the day its just the side of the road on which we drive, nothing to do with britan dictating us how we do things. Im sure we don't need to show more independance from britan when its plain to see that we are completly different regardless.

And anyway it wouldn't do us any good neither to isolate ourselves from Britan, afterall they are one of our most important trading partners.

09-09-2009 2:03am

I was in Burma a few years ago!
A former British colony, used to drive on the left as do many countries in SE Asia, they decided to change for political reasons advice of a wizard!

ordered everyone to start driving on the right side of the road, rather than the left, on the advice of a wizard;

to the right sometime in the 70's (i think).
Stupid thing is that they import almost of their (secondhand) vehicles from Japan, so about 80% of the vehicles on the roads are RHD. :rolleyes:

Samoa are changing to enable citizans to make use of cheaper easily available RHD vehicles.

edit: changed reason for switchover, even madder than political!

09-09-2009 2:09am

Furet wrote: »

The new motorways have been designed for the way we drive now, though.

With the exception of a couple of junctions & positioning of barriers, the design could be either hand.

I know that motorways built in the 1960's & 70's in the UK were specifically designed to be swapped over to RHD without any engineering changes (except for line markings & signs), as it was anticipated that a switchover may happen. Before WWII many couintries on mainland Europe drove on the right as well.

Kalashnikov_Kid · 09-09-2009 2:21am

This junction 20 of the M1/N1/A1 actually straddles both side of the border! Continue straight ahead and your still in the South. Take the Jonesborough exit northbound you enter the North, but if you cross the carriageway and take the Carrickarnon exit, you're back in the South again! It's mad - there's actually different road signs (Ireland and UK) for each side of the junction! And a house snadwiched in one side of the junction for good measure too!

Anyone have a pic of this? Must be the only junction like it in the world! Full points to anyone who can devise a plan for that if we do ever change over!

mikemac · 09-09-2009 5:36am

We could put in a mad scalectrix style junctions with loops and flyovers at every border crossing

JayeL · 09-09-2009 8:14am

I don't see what the advantage of switching over would be and I find it baffling that it keeps coming up now and then.

I especially don't see why an island would change. Samoa is a small place, so I suppose it's about the easiest place in the world to make such a change. But I think it's more to do with being able to import 2nd hand NZ and Oz cars than anything else.

But honestly, what'd be in it for Ireland? A billion euro bill, more or less, for starters. And for what - the pleasure of knowing that we drive on the same side as everyone else in Europe bar the UK, Malta and Cyprus. Wow. Let's get started, lads.

Apart from an accident rate that would make your skin crawl, changing over would also involve changing every. single. road. marking. in. the. country. Significantly re-building a large number of assymmetric junctions on our motorways, moving signs to reflect this, one-way systems would have to be reconfigured, a re-education programme that could cost as much as, well, education.

And again, for what? Cheaper cars? Most manufacturers design with RHD in mind from the start. We hardly miss out on any cars anymore because of where our steering wheels are. And I have no doubt that with India becoming a bigger motoring nation every year, the RHD market is only going to get bigger.

Mrs OBumble · 09-09-2009 3:05pm

Sheesh ... ye all can barely cope with roundabouts as they are now .. I cannot begin to imagine the chaos if Ireland changed.

(There have been some great threads in the Galway City forum about roundabouts

)

I know Samoa said it was for economic reasons. But I can't help but think there was some politics there too. They changed their name from "Western Samoa" to "Samoa" about ten years ago, to the annoyance of American Samoa.

Imagine if we did this!

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