As I mentioned at the start of my blog, my main interest is to look at the history associated with philatelic items. The inspiration for this research was a set of stamps issued by Qatar in 1967 regarding Qatar Traffic Day. Why 1967, what motivated the issue.
In the 1960s a number of countries, big and small issued stamps regarding Traffic Safety:
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But looking at the issue from Iceland I noticed that it was not only highlighting traffic safety but also a change in the direction of driving, Considering most of the countries in the region had been British Protectorates it was strange that they all now drive on the right (American style), rather than on the left as do most ex-British colonies. On closer look I found that the Trucial countries change from Left Hand Drive (LHD) to Right Hand Drive (RHD) in 1966, Bahrain in 1967 and Yemen followed suit in 1977. The Latter one was complemented with a stamp issue as shown below:
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Looking through the superb Qatar Digital Library I found the first piece of the puzzle:
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The Qatar Digital Library was contained the traffic regulations as written for Qatar (1954), Kuwait, Bahrain and the Trucial Countries all issued in 1955. In these regulations only Kuwait was a Right hand Drive, all the others, as expected were Left hand Drive. This would go some was in explaining the Qatar 1967 Stamp issue. If only I could find something related to when Qatar changed from LHD to RHD.
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This answer was not what I expected, as can be seen in the image below. Qatar's Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Al Thani had requested the Traffic Regulations to be changed from LHD to RHD just prior to the final publication of the Legislation (this was probably the same for Kuwait, although I have not been able to find the appropriate documentation). See the image below.
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So we now have the case that both Qatar and Kuwait were RHD from 1955. The Trucial Countries and Bahrain were LHD. They, eventually changed side in 1966 and 1967 respectively. See the image below.
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Possibly the world emphasis on general traffic safety (accidents number had been growing at an alarming rate) compounded with the change in the Traffic Regulations in the nearby neighbours prompted the issue of these stamps as shown below.
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