CONTACTTRAFFICABOUT TOM VANDERBILTOTHER WRITING CONTACT ABOUT THE BOOK
« Bald Injustice
Tech Support »

The Leftist Insurgency in Samoa

I’ve got a new piece up at Salon.com that considers that ever vexing question: Which side of the road should we drive on? And should we all do it the same way?

Here’s the opener:

A revolution is afoot in the small Pacific island nation of Samoa. Mass demonstrations, the biggest the country has ever seen, have rocked the capital. A new political party has formed in an attempt to depose the prime minister. The airwaves crackle with dissent.

As is often the case in political strife, a left-right divide underpins the Samoan turmoil. In this case, left vs. right refers to which side of the road Samoans are meant to drive on. At 6 a.m. on Sept. 7, Samoans, who for over a century have navigated on the right — like their neighbors in American Samoa — will change over to the left.

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Cars, Roads, Traffic Culture, Traffic Engineering, Traffic History, Traffic Laws. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “The Leftist Insurgency in Samoa”

  1. Robin Johnson Says:
    August 14th, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    I remember as child in occupied Austria around 1946 being told that Austria was forcibly switched to RHD when Hitler annexed the country in 1938.
    I have no idea if that is correct - if so it must have been a major trauma!

  2. Tara Bloyd Says:
    August 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    It was a fascinating piece — thanks so much! I’d never really thought about a whole country switching in a single day — I just know that when I travel to a LHD country I either use public transportation or take a taxi because I don’t trust myself to mentally make the transition as completely as I’d need to. I’ve been really enjoying your blog, and I’m glad to have come here from salon.

  3. John Says:
    August 14th, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    Asking any nation to switch driving sides would be like asking everyone to switch writing hands. Although an attractive idea in a world-traveler sense, I just cannot see this being done. If someone asked me to drive them somewhere in England, I would have to say “I can’t!”

  4. Bossi Says:
    August 17th, 2009 at 6:17 am

    Reminds me of Dagen H:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

Leave a Reply

Traffic Tom Vanderbilt

How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.

Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.

For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.

For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.

For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.

Order Traffic from:

Amazon | B&N | Borders
Random House | Powell’s

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
U.S. Paperback UK Paperback
Traffic UK
Drive-on-the-left types can order the book from Amazon.co.uk.

For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.

Upcoming Talks

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [MySpace] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Yahoo!]
Twitter
August 2009
M T W T F S S
« Jul   Sep »
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930
31