Road Switch

Well, the countdown to the September 7 ‘D-Day’ – the day we change the side of the road that we drive on – continues. On the front page of today’s paper I noticed that we are now down to 9 days to go. So, how is it all going?

Well, first of all it is still not absolutely 100% going to happen (unless of course you are the Prime Minister because he has decreed that it will go ahead). The group that is opposing the switch, PASS (People Against Switching Sides) have finally been allowed to have their objections heard in court. They have been trying for over a year, and previously had been told to go away because they had no case. Now they have successfully argued that the road switch might be contrary to the Samoan Constitution, in particular the Government’s obligation to provide for the safety of the people. Anyway, the case has been heard this week, with all sorts of ‘experts’ giving their views on how the world will come to an end because we have to change the side of the road we drive on. One of these experts, an engineer for NZ, gave evidence saying that changing sides is dangerous and the way to make it safer is to widen all the roads by 1,5m and allow vehicles to overtake on the left, i.e. overtake on the inside - turns out this road expert is a mechanical engineer! The judge is due to deliver his ruling at 2.00pm this afternoon, so we will all be gathered around our radios to hear the news.

Meanwhile, the bus drivers are getting upset because they will have to put doors on the left side of the bus so that they can pick up and drop off their passengers safely. This was identified more than a year ago, but it has only been in the last week or so that anyone has actually started talking about it in more depth. Anyone that has seen the state of most of the buses over here will realize that it is quite possible to simply cut another door behind the drivers seat and put in some steps and away you go. Sure there are costs and it will take a bit of time to do all the buses, but why hasn’t anyone started doing it already? With just over a week to go it sounds like a big ask to put doors in all the buses before September 7. So far I have seen a couple of buses with ‘new’ doors on the left, as well as the existing door on the right, but not many. The bus drivers now want $50,000 tala compensation per bus to convert them. Fair enough, they should get some assistance with these forced changes, but to raise the issue this late seems a bit strange to me. So now they are threatening to keep the buses off the roads until they have their compensation and the new doors have been installed. Fortunately we don’t have to rely on the buses anymore, but a lot of people here do and it will be a major problem for them.

While all of this has been going on the Land Transport Authority has been busy painting the roads, putting up signs, advertising on TV, radio, newspapers etc. It is the first time we have seen a centreline on the roads here, so that is an improvement. They have also been getting ready to paint arrows on the road to remind you which way to drive. For now they are just painting the dash and will add the arrowhead or point at the time of the switch. Unfortunately in some places the locals have taken it upon themselves to paint the arrowhead for them, in some cases on the current side and other cases on the ‘new’ side which of course is very confusing for people driving on the roads now. They have also temporarily lowered the speed limit, from an already slow 25 miles/hour to 20 miles/hour (no metric system for speed here for some reason). To help slow cars down they have instaledl speed humps everywhere. Apparently they will remove them sometime in the future, but we will see if that happens. The traffic lights are also being changed (yes, we do have traffic lights here), but they have been out of action so much recently that no one will notice the difference.

The final instructions have now been issued for the actual moment of the change: At 5.50am on September 7 all drivers are to pull over to the right side of the road and stop. They are to wait there and ‘think about’ the switch. At 6.00am drivers are to move to the left side of the road and stop where they will again sit for 10 minutes and prepare themselves for driving on the left side of the road. At 6.10 everyone starts driving on the left side. Apparently in the Samoa version of the ad the phrasing is a bit ambiguous and could be interpreted to mean that after 10 minutes you change the side you are driving on – every 10 minutes! Hopefully they have got that one cleared up now!!

So, with all of these preparations and the all of the advertising are we ready to change? Probably as ready as we will ever be. At least we get 2 days public holiday to help adjust! I think we will stay off the roads as much as we can for those first few days. Stayed tuned, we wil let you know how it all goes.