Samoans braced for car trouble

Samoa is about to do what no other country has tried for four decades - switch driving to the other side of the road.

Sweden and Iceland pulled off the manoeuvre with relative ease in the 1960s, but there are fears that Samoa won't be able to do the same without carnage.

First, there are the huge logistical problems. Samoans have used the right-hand side of the road for more than a century, like their close neighbours in American Samoa.

But Samoa is home to left-hand drive cars of the big, American variety. So drivers will start driving on the left on September 7 but most will still be positioned on the left of their cars until they can afford to buy new ones.

"Think of everyone sitting on the outside of the road," says Dr Biopapa Annandale, chairwoman of People Against Switching Sides (Pass).

"What will they be able to see? It's going to be a nightmare. People will die."

Add to that the problem that the much-needed road widening project, due to be finished around the same time, has now been delayed until next March.

There are other gripes, too, such as the cost of getting all the country's buses fitted with doors on the other side so children won't have to offload into the middle of the road.

Local car dealers like Perth man Ken Newton, a Hyundai importer, says the move will cripple them. His annual sales of 250 cars halted on the day the change was announced and the 40 vehicles in his rental car company will have to be replaced because tourists will need the safest option.

Samoa's Chamber of Commerce predicts financial turmoil, estimating the switch will cost the economy at least $490 million.

The move was the brain child of Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, the Samoan Prime Minister. He says the change will eventually end importing costly left-hand drives and encourage the 250,000 Samoans who live in Australia and New Zealand to send cars home.

- AAP