WHILE the demise of the Australian car industry in 2017 will signify a great loss in our manufacturing capacity, it also will provide us with an opening to doing what we should have done many years ago.

We should use this as an opportunity to convert to driving on the right to match the bulk of our major trading partners, who, with the exception of Japan, all drive on the right.

Of course, changing the side of the road we drive on will have both advantages and costs. The advantages are obvious. First, our market will be open to new and used cars and trucks from Europe, the US and China. Instead of being limited to those vehicles made especially for markets where they drive on the left, we will have access to a much wider range of cars and trucks.

It is no secret that many of the world’s most sophisticated and ecologically advanced vehicles are not sold here or are sold at exorbitant prices.

And, at the other end of the market, we will have access to a greater choice of cheaper vehicles from a wider source of supply than we have now.

Another advantage is that we will become a more attractive destination for visitors who might be put off by the difficulty of driving on the “wrong” side of the road.

We should not underestimate the concerns that many potential visitors have about the dangers and difficulties of driving on the other side of the road. It will also be easier for Australians heading overseas, as most the rest of the world (about 70 per cent of the world’s population) drives on the right.

Finally, this change would allow the remainder of our auto industry, for example the companies that modify or build vehicles for sport, recreation and defence purposes, to transact more easily with the rest of the world.

The costs involved in changing to driving on the right will also be immediate and obvious. Road signs and markings will need to be changed. And we would have to expect that older cars would continue to be used for some years after a changeover and this will cause difficulties when driving them on the right.

Perhaps the greatest cost would be the necessary road works needed to make entry and exit from our highways work for driving on the right. Not all entries to and exits from highways and freeways are symmetrical, so it would not always be just a case of reversing signs and traffic. New entrances and exits will need to be built and they will not come cheaply.

Given the costs involved, one might be justified in arguing that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But this ignores the psychological impact that such a change would have and the signal that it would send to the rest of the world.

We can’t ignore the effect that the loss of the car industry will have on our national psyche. After all, Australia is now one of only 13 countries in the world that can design and manufacture cars from scratch. Losing this capacity will cause a big hole in our manufacturing sector. Rather than bemoan our loss we should make a confident move, one that shows that we can do things and are thinking of the future.

Our successful adoption of decimal currency and the metric system shows that we are good at planning for and adapting to change. Changing to driving on the right would also signal to the world that we are open for business and open to challenges thrown at us by a new world order increasingly dominated by China.

The last major country to change the side it drove on was Sweden in 1967 and that was done with a minimum of fuss. Indeed, traffic accidents were reduced after the change, presumably because of the care that drivers gave to the new driving situation.

We could mimic Sweden’s successful strategy and change over a long weekend. We would need, of course, a holiday period for breaches of driving rules to allow for bedding in of change.

If we decided to change to the right early enough we could have laws in place allowing the sale of cars configured to drive on the right before the start of the new driving regime, thus maximising the number of appropriately configured cars on changeover day.

There would still be a significant number of “wrong” cars around, but they would gradually disappear.

No doubt the costs and benefits of changing to the right need to be calculated and evaluated. But in weighing those costs and benefits, we shouldn’t forget the intangible but real benefits of making a positive move.

The end of the car industry can be viewed as a sign of decline for Australia. But, instead, if we see it as an opportunity, as an acknowledgment of our place in the world and our determination to make our way and reinvent ourselves, we might make things better rather than meekly accepting our fate. It’s time to drive on the right.

John Gava is a Reader at the Adelaide Law School