P.A.S.S.

People Against Switching Sides – a group opposed to the change in driving side in Samoa.

“A chorus of wailing sirens and ringing bells will signal Samoa’s attempt to do something no country has tried since the 1970s,” Michael Dobie reportedrecently for the BBC:

From Monday morning, drivers in the Pacific island nation will steer their cars to the left-hand side of roads, instead of the right-hand side they are currently driving on.

The Samoan government says the change will be economically beneficial to Samoans – ending the import of expensive, fuel-guzzling cars from the States and American Samoa, in favor of cheaper second-hand cars from Japan, Australia and New Zealand (who all drive on the left). However, the move has not been universally popular:

“Cars are going to crash, people are going to die – not to mention the huge expense to our country,” says lawyer Tole’afoa Solomona Toa’iloa, who has headed a legal challenge in the Supreme Court against the constitutionality of the plan for protest group People Against Switching Sides (P.A.S.S.).

Dobie noted:

Local bus owners are also furious about having to either buy new vehicles or convert their old ones – by cutting new doors on the left side behind the driver so passengers don’t have to step off into the middle of the road.

One bus company owner has threatened to set his vehicles alight in protest.

In some places, new signs directing drivers to keep left have been removed, and directional arrows on the road have been painted over to point the wrong way.