Sweden's chaos celebration: Dagen H

• 

While Volvo celebrates 40 years of their 240 model range (born 21 augustus 1974) and 7 decades of the PV444 (1 september 1944) it’s also 47 years back in time since Sweden was the most confusing place in the world to drive a car. The country had their ‘Dagen H’ eventually leading to 5 AM on 3  September 1967. Dagen H stood for 'Days of Högertrafik’ - Swedish for ‘Right hand traffic’. Yes, Sweden changed from driving on the left to driving on the right on that particular moment in time. The reason? Neighboring Norway and Finland were driving on the right either, which made Sweden a bit of an oddball sandwiched in between them. Apart from that the government found that left hand driven vehicles caused too many head-on collisions while driving on the left. And so, while 80% of the Swedes said no to the change in a referendum, the change was there to come.

As you can see in this famous picture taken on that September morning in Stockholm, it lead to some, erm, imbalance. But according to the contemporary press only 125 minor accidents were reported on the day. One boy on a bicycle broke his leg after he was hit be a confused driver – supposedly one of the worst incidents. The politicians were also keen to report that traffic accidents went down over the next few months. However, by 1969, the accident rates were back at their normal levels and the Dagen H became once more a point of discussion... Left hand driven traffic is in a minority now – this map shows you the exceptions in blue. For better or worse?

(Text Jeroen Booij, picture courtesy Wikipedia/Jan Collsiöö)

Ajoutez un commentaire...