As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, the Samoan prime minister has ordered a switch from driving on the right (a la the U.S. and most of the rest of the world) to driving on the left (a la Britain and its former colonies). The idea is that because Australia and New Zealand do it in the British style, the switch will make it easier and cheaper for Samoans to purchase used cars.
The choice of which side of the road to drive on is usually discussed in terms of the direct network externalities—what the policies of neighboring countries are. This is an interesting case in which the stated logic is due to
indirect network externalities, where the issue is not whether cars will have head-on collisions or not, but whether people will be able to buy more readily available cars. Of course,
switching the sides has been done in an orderly fashion in Sweden. [Via
The Monkey Cage]
