The Philippines move right!

 Carlos Yu and I have a long-term plan to write a book on the Philippines under American rule. But it won’t be done until 2018 at the earliest.

One thing that we discovered while writing our book on the Panama Canal was that Panamanians drove on the left until April 15, 1943. The reasons for the changeover are obvious; less so is why Panama started out on the left. The influx from the British West Indies is often cited. (Colombia did not start to regularize its traffic codes until Panama had already seceded but appears to have always driven on the right.) Argentina drove on the left between 1889 and 1945. The first traffic code, from 1872, mandated driving on the right but the country switched to the left in emulation of the British-built railroads. (You can still see this in the Buenos Aires subway.) It moved back to the right on June 10, 1945.

But neither of us had any idea that the Philippines also drove on the left until March 10, 1945! That is more than slightly amazing. The vast majority of cars were imported from the United States. So how did the rule survive so long? Even more amazing, the reason for the shift given in the text of the executive order implies that imported cars had been physically reconfigured to right-hand-drive before the switch:

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 34: AMENDING TRAFFIC REGULATIONS FOR VEHICLES

WHEREAS it is deemed advisable to change the existing regulations providing for the driving of vehicles on the left side of the road so that the vehicle traffic in the Philippines shall conform with the practice of driving on the right side of the road obtaining in most countries of the world;

WHEREAS such a change would bring about certain economic advantages to the people of the Philippines in that it would reduce the price of motor vehicles imported into the Philippines from the United States;

WHEREAS during the present emergency the great majority of the motor vehicles of the United States Army used on the roadways in the Philippines are right-hand driven and the drivers thereof are accustomed to driving on the right side of the road; and

WHEREAS the present affords the most propitious opportunity to effect this desired change;

NOW, THEREFORE, by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, particularly Commonwealth Act No. 671, I, Sergio Osmeña, President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, do hereby order;

1. That section 60 of the Revised Motor Vehicle Law, Act No. 3992, be amended, as it is hereby amended, to read as follows:

“SEC. 60. Drive on right side of road.—Unless a different course of action is required in the interest of the safety and security of life, person, or property, or because of unreasonable difficulty of operation in compliance herewith, every person operating a motor vehicle or guiding an animal drawn vehicle on a highway shall pass to the right when meeting persons or vehicles coming toward him, and to the left when overtaking persons or vehicles going the same direction, and, when turning to the left, in going from one highway into another, every vehicle shall be conducted to the right of the center of the intersection of the highway.”

2. That all other sections or parts of the said Revised Motor Vehicle Law and amendments thereof shall be considered as amended or modified as they are hereby amended or modified accordingly so as to conform with the provisions of the Executive Order; and all other provisions of law inconsistent with or contrary to the provisions of this Executive Order shall be considered repealed as they are hereby repealed.

Done at the City of Manila, this tenth day of March, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and forty-five, and of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, the tenth.

SERGIO OSMEÑA
President of the Philippines

Unless most American imports had been reconfigured before sale in the Philippines, then there is no reason why switching the side you drive on would make imports cheaper. Today the Bahamas drives on the left but enforces no such rule; neither does the U.S. Virgin Islands. Was there a mechanics lobby group in the Philippine Islands that insisted on reconfiguring imports before 1945? 

There has got to be a story here.

Comments

[J.H.]

Could it be that there was a convergence of interest groups in the Philippines and the United States that kept up the drive on the left law and as a result the reconfiguration of imports as a requirement?

I would imagine that in the Philippines those interested in independence would prefer that the Filipino road code remain distinct from the American road code in order to discourage the prospects for the total integration as either an incorporated territory or statehood. This I imagine would also be mirrored by those in the United States who did not want the full integration of the Philippines into the United States (and if I remember one of your earlier postings on the Philippines correctly these interest groups also had a hand in maintaining a separate Filipino currency and currency standard).

Once the drive on the left rule was maintained then it would seem likely that an interest group of mechanics would be formed once it became a requirement to reconfigure American imports (since American imports would presumably be the most affordable anyway depending on the tariff situation) and that this group might well have had a role in maintaining the drive on the left rule.

Hmmm...I guess if it wasn't for the Japanese then the Philippines might still drive on the left today. If they hadn't invaded in 1941, the Commonwealth of the Philippines would have been granted independence on July 4, 1945 and this would have occurred without the massive influx of American soldiers and vehicles from 1944 which necessitated the March 1945 conversion from driving on the left to driving on the right.

I wonder why the USVI still drive on the left though..?

[Noel Maurer]

I like that analysis. You're spot-on about American resistance to anything that integrated the Philippines and the mainland. That said, the decision would have been made by the Philippine Commission until 1917 ... and the Commission was staffed by pro-imperial Republicans. So it doesn't explain everything.

The USVI ... my best guess is that it just didn't matter. The islands aren't eligible for standard federal highway funding, so that incentive doesn't apply. There's never been a big military presence, so that incentive doesn't apply. (The above two reasons are why we hypothesized that "American Trinidad" would have switched to the right soon after 1931.) Large-scale tourism didn't get started until the 1970s.

The islands are tiny: St.Thomas covers 31 square miles, St. John is 20, and St. Croix is 82. (Manhattan is 23.) Only St. Croix is really large enough to start generating heavy traffic, but it has only 50,000 people.

So my guess is apathy. The U.S. Navy couldn't be bothered, the territory was buying American cars anyway, so who cared? The real way to test this would be to go through the records of the USVI Legislature back to 1954 and see if anyone tried to introduce bills mandating the switch. I suspect not ... but if that's wrong, it would be interesting to see why the bills failed.

Sadly, the minutes of the USVI Legislature do not seem to be easily available on-line ... and I have to admit that travel there is very low down on our priority list.

[J.H.]

Apathy seems like a very good explanation for why the USVI still drives on the left then..

For the Philippines though, could it be that the Commission didn't make a decision on the right or left usage of the road or that its preferred option for this was stymied by anti-integration interests in the United States? After all there must have been some reason why the pro-imperial Republican-staffed Philippine Commission until 1917 did not end the Philippine peso and replace it with the dollar nor switch traffic from the left to the right side of the road...

[Noel Maurer]

Regarding the peso, have you seen this post?

http://noelmaurer.typepad.com/aab/2012/02/policy-of-attraction-part-3.html

The difference is that the currency was Congress's responsibility, whereas traffic codes fell within the Commission's powers under the Organic Act. Section 74 gave the Commission the authority to write traffic regulations; Section 77, meanwhile, gave the Commission only the ability to mint small change. (See http://www.gov.ph/constitutions/the-philippine-organic-act-of-1902/.)

[J.H.]

I actually had that post in mind when I originally referred to the peso :-)

But it's been a while since I read it and it slipped me that Congress had a big say in the currency issue versus the organic government of the Philippines itself.

So with all that you have pointed out just now it really is rather puzzling that the Commission ignored the drive on the left rule given its make up and powers. Maybe it just never really occurred to them to change it or they had other issues that pushed the traffic regulations way down on their list of priorities.

Whatever the reason I love a good puzzle.

[Michael OKane]

About driving on the the left in Panama: are your sure? I remember that there were odd traffic rules concerning the swing bridge at Pedro Miguel and a Bailey Bridge somewhere near Gamboa, but that was it. I'm pretty sure that I would have known.

On this point, Myanmar switched to driving on the right in the 1970's because a fortune-teller advised the government head to do so. Strangely, they kept right-hand side drive cars. The result is that a left hand turn in Myanmar is an extremely dangerous operation.

And in Bolivia, they import cars with steering wheels on the right and move the pedals and wheel to the left leaving the other controls on what is now the passenger side.

[Noel Maurer]

Regarding Panama --- yup, we're sure. The country switched in '43. We saw the archival documents while writing our book, but you can also see some photos here: http://www.panamahistorybits.com/article.asp?id=2011-07-22.

Myanmar sounds the reverse of the Bahamas or USVI.

The Bolivian thing sounds nuts. The controls are one side but all the dials on the other??