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VOL. 78 PART 3 MAY 2020
“this change has been accomplished without one single accident”, though
“automobiles are present in as great numbers on the streets of the city as
ever before” and “the street car service is maintaining its ordinary level”.
The newspaper credited B.C. Electric for “the intelligence with which its
officers … advertised and managed the change”, noting that the company
“from the first assumed responsibility for making the streets safe during and
after the change”, going to “a great deal of trouble and expense to inform and
advise the public how to conduct themselves to obviate accident”.24
The only confusion may have been experienced by onlookers witnessing
a different street scene than they had been used to seeing. Apparently, on
January 1, 1922, the police in Traffic District No. 1 received an inquiry from
one homeowner who was concerned that street car operators were on strike
(as the Vancouver Sun had cautioned on December 31, 1921 might occur);
“when she was told the streetcars were still running, she said: ‘Yes, I
know they are running, but in front of my house they are running backwards
and going fast, too.’”25
Of course, driving on the left is still required in various jurisdictions
around the world, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa, Hong Kong and Japan. In the late 1960s the British Department
of Transport considered the possibility of changing to the right, soon
after Sweden had changed as well, but rejected the notion given safety and
cost considerations, particularly since so much infrastructure was already
tailored to driving on the left.26 (The fact that no change was made for consistency
with the rest of Europe was fortunate enough, of course, or presumably
with Brexit there would also have been a parallel debate about
changing the rule of the road back to how it had been.)
In September 2009, Samoa (the country) in fact changed from driving on
the right to driving on the left, at least in part to facilitate the import of inexpensive
left-hand-drive cars from Japan, Australia and New Zealand.27
Reportedly it was the first country to switch driving sides in about 40 years.
Its prime minister, who had led the charge to change driving practices, went
on the radio at the 6 a.m. crossover point to issue instructions, and police
were on hand to usher drivers to the other side of the road amid honking
horns, sirens and pealing church bells.28
In British Columbia, however, for the foreseeable future drivers and nondrivers
alike should all still be guided by the stirring words of the telephone
company: “keep to the right” and “be right”.
ENDNOTES
1. See e.g. “Ten Commandments for the Motorist”, The
Grand Forks Sun and Kettle Valley Orchardist (19
October 1923) at 1.
2. Fraser McAlpine, “Why Do the Brits Drive on the
Left?”, BBC America, online: <www.bbcamerica.
com/anglophenia/2015/01/brits-drive-left>.