Samoans now drive on left side of the road

APIA, Samoa — Car horns and sirens sounded, church bells rang out and roads were crowded with vehicles and smiling drivers Monday as Samoa marked its official switch to left-side driving.

Hundreds lined streets in the capital, Apia, to witness the switch from the right to the left on the country's highways as police manned scores of checkpoints, warning drivers to slow down.

The government is using the move to bring Samoa in line with Australia and New Zealand to encourage some of the 170,000 expatriate Samoans there to ship used cars — with steering wheels on the right side — home to relatives.

The switch from right to left-side driving was being ushered in with a two-day national holiday to cut traffic volumes and a three-day ban on alcohol sales to avoid road crashes.

Samoa is the first country in decades to switch the flow of traffic. Iceland and Sweden did it in the 1960s, and Nigeria, Ghana and Yemen did it in the 1970s.

The government will continue to allow vehicles with left-side steering wheels after the changeover, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said, and has still to address the problems of bus operators with both doors and steering now on the wrong side.