THE ADVOCATE 465
VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
ated streetcars, to change its mode of operation despite the fact that the
company was then under the jurisdiction of the Railway Board of Canada.11
Attorney General Farris agreed that B.C. Electric was under federal jurisdiction,
“but he could not concede that any Federal Government would so far
forget itself as to prevent the Province regulating its own street traffic, limiting
the speed thereof, or saying on which side it should operate.” Farris
added that “if all the possibilities conjured up by the Opposition leader
should prove true it would prove a condemnation of the Dominion stronger
than anything hitherto voiced in the Legislature.”12
Despite the various practical and legal cautions that were expressed, ultimately
the B.C. government shepherded through the legislation required to
effect the change to the rule of the road. The change to driving on the right
was brought about through an amendment in the spring of 1920 to the Highway
Act. The amendment required that vehicles be on the right if meeting
an oncoming vehicle or being overtaken.13
The shift came into effect throughout most of the province (“Traffic District
No. 2”) on July 15, 1920 but was delayed until December 31, 1921 (ultimately
6 a.m. on January 1, 1922) in the Lower Mainland west of Hope, as
well as on Vancouver Island (“Traffic District No. 1”). The change was
deferred in Traffic District No. 1 because streetcars—operated by B.C. Electric,
as noted above—and tracks had to be retrofitted. At that time, there was
no intraprovincial road linking the traffic districts, which made this staggered
implementation feasible: the Hope-Princeton Highway was built only
in the 1940s, Highway 1 through the Fraser Canyon was completed only in
the late 1960s and the Coquihalla Highway was a feat of the 1980s.
The fear of chaotic road conditions that had fuelled some of the opposition
to the legislative amendment was manifest as well once the countdown
to the actual changeovers in each traffic district began. One newspaper
grimly noted in advance of the July 15, 1920 change in Traffic District No.
2: “Better get insured.”14 Another prophesied that on July 15 “a great deal of
confusion will undoubtedly result from the change at first”.15 The Province
noted that “croakers” predicted before the change in Traffic District No. 1
that “there would be a scene of wild confusion at all the greatest nerve centres
of the traffic system, that there would be innumerable accidents, that
people would be killed every ten minutes and the gods of all old customs
would rise up and demand a continuous stream of human sacrifice”.16
Strenuous efforts were made to ensure this carnage did not ensue. Newspapers
reminded readers of the pending change. Leading up to the July 15,
1920 change in Traffic District No. 2, newspapers ran prominent advertisements
from the Ministry of Public Works setting out the “Rule of the Road”: