Great work 'Rental Car Industry' but where are our engineers, transportation planners and police? Has anyone of you with that talent ever considered the safety of existing road alignments and network to traffic users? Come on.... someone must know something and please tell our prime minister the consequences of changing to RHD switch without re-aligning the roads.

What do you want Mr PM, money or second hand cars with noisy exhaust and lots of smoke from it?

Someone should seriously look at a wrecker’s yards and steel-recycling business now../

Good luck Samoa

Obviously, Tuilaepas response to allowing the RHD in samoa is Stupid...perhaps its time for him to go back to school to learn the basics..lol...

This is an election bribe for the popular vote. The recent resurgence in the polls by the opposition has caused Stui to bring out his big guns. This policy will ensure that the previous winning margin will be doubled and may even surpass the 100% Saddam got in his re-election back before Bush rained on his parade.

Also, we all dont see the benefits to our gambling expats in NZ, now they will have to buy pickups with money that wouldve been spent on pokies, QED = no problem gambling!.... This RHD vision is inspirational. It is brilliant.
/end of sarcasm
There is no use being critical about this issue anymore. It looks like were all going to have to eat our share of this stupid pie.

I think its time for the PM to come out of his shell and explain to the people of Samoa the main drive behind this RHD policy.As the saying goes,You can blind some people but not all people.The Yazaki Samoa company will move out of Samoa to Asia due to the rising cost of Labour leaving hundreds if not thousands of Samoans unemployed.The PM then look for a replacement and sign a contract with Holden Australia/NZ to replace Yazaki and to create new jobs for the people working at Yazaki.One of the requirement by Holden to sign the agreement is for Samoa to switch to RHD.If Yazaki leaves before the 2011 election without any replacement for the unemployed people then perhaps HRPP will no longer rule the country.So Stui should have the courage and come out and tell the people especially the worried Car Industry.I am sure they will agree.I found out about this when I was trying to retrieve some coconuts for my faalifu.

The ecionomical values and other benefits stated by the PM and his RHD supporters may or may not be valid. But here's a thought: Our people cross the streets several times a day. Try telling your kids the night before the big switch over - "OK kids tomorrow I want you to look RIGHT cross the street then look LEFT" .
How easy will that be after years of an instinctive mind set where we always check out the traffic from the LEFT first.
We will have to train our Left hand to shift gears , turn the Radio, talk on the phone and do whatever else you used to do with your Right Hand in the car! That should be easy right ? Well folks good luck crossing the street !

Faipopo, you made some interesting comments. How about this for all you conspiracy theorist.

Govt increases minimum wage
Yazaki sees soaring labour cost
Yazaki ROI drops
Yazaki seeks to move elsewhere
Govt realises they made a bubu
Govt makes a pact with Holden
Conditions Apply
RHD becomes Law
Samoa Buys Holden Utes

hehehe ok i know it sounds whacky......but this whole RHD thing is whacky

This switch to RHD is plain unbelievable. First of all where are the statistics from a proper research that was done to prove that NZ Aus cars will be cheaper than the current LHDs? This is utterly crazy. And as we know from our history the govt recently stopped the importation of RHDs because they were found to have been the cause of a lot of accidents in the country. So how in anyone's right mind would LHD and RHD be able to co-exist in a country that has been driving LHD since we can remember? I think our leader may be losing his marbles. I think the cowardly Ministry of transport should stand up and do what people are paying them to do. Do a proper research and inform the country and the PM of which way we should go. The PM's statements sound unfounded and like faipopo's theory maybe there is some weight to it as it seems to fit this craziness.
And please if there's any hope of an opposition party get your act together and form a party so we can have some balance in this unsound leadership.
Soifua

Yep, you must be growing nuts in Samoa!!

I drove there on the right at a smacking 40 to 50 km/h (or less) on memory. Kiwis and Aussies travel alot and rent cars in LHD countries, sometimes travel at 140 km/h and survive. I'm sure Samoan expats on return for a few weeks cope before heading back to a RHD country too (at only 40 km/h).

Yep, to use a good Aussie expression, the Samoan government must have gone completely troppo!!

I suggested in another comment section to import cheap non-gas guzzling cars, pickups, vans and trucks from LHD Korea by the containership load. Maybe if they reverse this silly RHD for Samoa idea, I'll abandon Sydney and start filling the vehicle demand from Korea!
My wife's brother in Cambodia already does this and already has the contacts, in fact for cost reasons Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have a Korean LHD fleet for driving on the right that has replaced RHD Thai sourced vehicles in the last ten to fifteen years or so. For the record Cambodia toyed with the idea of switching to RHD, driving on the left in the early 1990s until common sense prevailed.

I really hope common sense prevails in Apia!