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The moment when the traffic changed from left-hand drive to right-hand, in Kings Street, Stockholm, at 5am, on 3 September 1967.
The moment when the traffic changed from left-hand drive to right-hand, in Kings Street, Stockholm, at 5am, on 3 September 1967. Photograph: AP
The moment when the traffic changed from left-hand drive to right-hand, in Kings Street, Stockholm, at 5am, on 3 September 1967. Photograph: AP

Dagen H: the day Sweden switched to driving on the right – archive, 1967

This article is more than 1 year old

On 3 September 1967, the complicated mission to bring the country in line with its continental European neighbours began

Halting way to the right road

4 September 1967

Stockholm
Cheering crowds brought traffic to a halt here today as Sweden changed to driving on the right after four years of preparations, 40 years of argument, and at a total cost estimated at double the official figure of £40m.

All traffic had to halt for 10 minutes at 4.50 this morning throughout Sweden’s 60,000 miles of roads, but in Kungsgatan, Stockholm’s Oxford Street, the wait for impatient Swedish drivers wanting to try their luck on the right was much longer.

Barred
Though the centre of the city had been barred for nearly 24 hours to all but taxis, buses, and cars with special permits, a solid jam developed as sightseers, cyclists, and television cameramen swamped the roadway.

The police watched dourly as long lines of traffic – headlamps glaring, horns blowing –tried vainly to switch sides in the approved manner, getting hopelessly entangled in the process.

With military helicopters buzzing overhead, order was eventually restored and “Höger-dag”, “Right Day”, as the Swedes reverently term it, returned to the clockwork efficiency which marked its planning. Some 2,000 soldiers, 6,000 civil police, 50,000 school police, and 150,000 volunteers were on duty throughout Sweden, while an army of construction workers had worked throughout the night to make the final alterations to 350,000 street signs.

Last detail
Though there was the occasional jam and a number of minor accidents, the Swedish reputation for thoroughness can hardly ever have been better displayed. Typical of the meticulous attention to detail was that even the elk-hunting season had been brought forward a week so that hunters would not add to the traffic problem.

To prevent accidents from absent-mindedness after the change, and intensive publicity campaign has been mounted by the government in addition to the imposition of strict speed limits. These range from 40kph (25mph) in built-up areas to 90kph (58mph) on motorways. Drivers have been advised to keep their headlights switched on night and day until tomorrow.

The testing time, police say, is likely to be in about three weeks when drivers begin to relax and forget. The attitude here to the change seems curiously ambivalent. Many drivers say they are thankful it is at last over, yet are critical of the cost of the operation.

The criticism is no doubt the sharper because of the proposed 50 percent increase in vehicle tax next year, which is widely held to be the result of “Höger-dag.” And only just over 10 years ago in a national referendum, 83 percent voted against the change. When the Bill was finally passed in the Riksdag in 1963 after a deal between the two major political parties, it was estimated that the cost would be Kr400m (£28m) to be raised by a special vehicle tax of £2 13s for small cars and £5 for large cars, buses, and lorries.

Cost of £80m
In 1965 the official estimate was revived to Kr600m (£42m) and is now believed that the final cost to the government is likely to exceed Kr800m (£60m) with indirect cost of at least Kr200m, making a total of £80m.

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The success (or otherwise) of the change to the right operation is regarded as a test of the political future of Mr Olof Palme, the minister of communications, who has been widely tipped as a future prime minister if the Social Democrats remain in power after the general election next year.

Sweden’s about-turn leaves only four European countries (omitting Gibraltar) still committed to driving on the left. Iceland now plans to change next year.

Though the British Road Federation, the Ministry of Transport, the AA and the RAC, all had observers in Stockholm, there is as yet no enthusiasm from anyone for a similar move in Britain.

The cost would be astronomical – £350m was the last estimate – but even more important, the reasons which led Sweden to conform with her neighbours are not applicable. Ninety per-cent of our cars are not left-hand drive and the number of foreign and British cars entering and leaving is still comparatively small.

Until the Channel tunnel is built and until we get into the Common Market, the idea of a change is almost certainly a non-starter. Even then our insularity in every sense could well delay the move for at least a generation. But by the year 2000 even the Swedes think we will have followed suit.

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