Samoa to Join Thailand
Well, in only one respect, but it’s important.
Despite recent protests by some 30,000 people in the capital of Apia, the South Pacific island of Samoa changed over to drive on the left side of their roads on September 7th.
The change was decreed by the government to fall in line with neighbouring Australia and New Zealand, and to reflect the fact that most vehicles in Samoa thus have the steering wheel on the right.
The protesters feared a massive increase in accidents, saying that drivers had not been properly prepared. Their fears proved to be groundless.
Like it or not, Samoans have joined almost a third of the world’s drivers who all drive on the left. This possibly surprising total is of course explained by the enormous combined vehicle populations of UK, Japan, Malaysia, India and Indonesia, as well as Pakistan and most of the countries of Africa.
Why Thailand, surrounded by right-driving Burma, Laos and Cambodia, evolved motoring on the left can only have sprung from British influence in Malaya, now Malaysia.
When men rode horses and carried swords, most of them kept to the left. This was simply because most people are right handed and it was faster to draw your sword against an oncoming robber or enemy, as the sword was worn on the left of the body. Napoleon is said to have ordered his armies to march on the right as one of his demonstrations of hatred of the English. But at least we have to thank him for his lighting. At night, one soldier at the front had to carry a white light and one at the back a red light!
Editor’s note: Sweden was the last European nation to change (from left to right) in 1967 and did so without one fatal accident, thanks to brilliant, long term advance planning. The biggest expense was changing all the doors of the buses! Burma was the last eastern nation to change (the same way) in 1970. It is said that a general was obsessed by knowing how he would die. His fortune teller said a truck would run away down a hill and hit his car, in which he always sat on the left. The next day he ordered the nation to change over to the right.
