The Chamber of Commerce has urged riled up members to keep ‘cool heads’ over Government plans to switch to Right Hand Drives.
Angry sectors of the business community directly affected, were calling for public demonstrations and other protest actions in a meeting last week.
The open forum allowed for a flow of views on the issue, with most complaining strongly against the Government move, and the threat of setting business back as well as livelihood.
“When the run of charged emotions finally calmed down, the views were put into resolutions for the Chamber to prepare for proper presentation to Government,” says Chamber of Commerce President, Mr. Klaus Junior.
“We need to approach this issue in a constructive and professional manner, it is no use allowing the emotions to run wild because Government can simply turn around and ignore us,” he continued.
The Chamber of Commerce focus for now is towards putting together the necessary information to bolster their stance on the road switch issue.
“There is a Government steering committee studying the proposal and what goes into the new policy will be important to our official stance on the whole issue.”
Since the official announcement of the proposed new road policy about a week ago, the consequences for the car selling industry has been swift.
Local car deals are suddenly discovering that potential buyers who booked to by new cars have simply dropped anything to do with buying them.
All of a sudden the car dealers have found themselves saddled with million tala shipments of new vehicle already that have either just arrived or on the way.  
The situation is one of the major concerns that came up in the association meeting, but with the added urgency of the loss of business and the monthly interest pile up on credit arrangement with the local banks.
One of the seriously affected car dealers reveled a $500 dollars interest build up every day, on their credit arrangement with the bank.
“We are aware of the immediate impact on our members and we will be writing to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry, Misa Telefoni, about it.”
Studies are underway in some of the more severely affected sectors of the business community, into the full extent of the damage to their line of work.
The Chamber of Commerce President is anxious to see that if there is a switch over, the advantages and the benefits are worth it.
“I think that it is very important for any decision to be based on facts and not sentiments, we don’t want a situation where we are forced to switch back again when we discover we have made a mistake,”
“If we’re going to focus on buying second hand cars, can we guarantee that the New Zealand dealers will not put of their prices when they see the new added demand come in form Samoa?

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