Sweden last week celebrated the 55th anniversary of an unusual event in national history: September 3, 1967, or H-Day, the day the country switched from driving on the left to driving on the right. The H was for ‘högertrafik‘ or ‘right-hand traffic.’
Despite wide-spread predictions of confusion, crashes and disaster, the carefully-planned transition went off with only minor issues. The method was to install new traffic signs and signals ahead of time to have them ready for the switchover, and then to have all cars stop at 4:45 am on the day and wait for the signal to carefully cross over to the other side.
In 2017, on the 50th anniversary, a re-enactment was staged, using only cars that had been on the road in 1967. TheLocal.se has a more detailed story on the change-over.
I was in Sweden on the big day, on an entertainment tour of Swedish parks, and everyone was amazed how flawlessly it transpired. In the days before, burlap bags covered all the new road signs, pulled off in the night & in the morning off we went on the other side of the road. Switching was an obvious thing to do given the anomaly of cars in Sweden being left-hand drive.
Well, that must have been exciting! And, you’ve answered a question I wondered about, which was how long it took for left-drive cars to become the norm. They already were, it seems!