Did you know that more than half of the world drives on the right hand side? Here in America, there's no question or thought about having to drive on the right. What made these certain countries decide to drive to the left?
Perhaps they think we are odd for driving on the right side. Whatever the case may be, the world is looking closely at Samoa, where recently the law changed the rules of the road from driving on the right side to the left.
A movement brought up by the government, this change is intended to help the Samoan economy. What will happen is that Samoa will be able to accept use cars from their new left driving neighbors New Zealand, Australia and Japan. Cars will be cheaper and the old right handed cars will be sent to their families back home.
Many critics believe the change will cause lots of car accidents and deaths for such a drastic change. Traffic analysts even did a study that proved more accidents will occur.
Regardless, the change will go on and Samoans will have to get used to the idea of driving on the left.
Do you agree with the decision to move traffic to the left? Would it be beneficial or harmful if America did the same?
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Comments (7)
With the way people drive around here in America, I'd lock myself in a nuclear war shelter if our road system got changed up like that.
The advantage they outline sounds good, but the negative consequences (increased accidents, confusion, etc) that come with the process of changing an entire nation's driving rules outweigh the benefits, I think.
I am wondering how the driving would be if the UK changed traffic sides.
Em, no idea but my country is on right hand side...
i understand them wanting to boost the economy, but where are they going to get the money to fund such a change? think about it, they'd have to move lots of traffic lights and signs. also several of the roads will need directional lane arrows re-painted so it matches the new driving-on-the-left system.
seems to me the trouble isn't worth the end result
Funny, I just read a book called Traffic that talked about a similar situation in which a country switched from left to right recently--they all thought the accident rate would go up, but it went down because of pre-planning and advertising, as well as the fact that everyone was terrified, so they drove way more carefully and a lot slower. I think Samoa will be fine, and for them, the decision to drive on the left seems to make sense.