Dagen H - Wikipedia Dagen H This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( August 2010 ) This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Swedish. ( December 2014 ) Click for important translation instructions. View a machine - translated version of the Swedish article. Google 's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy - pasting machine - translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low - quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign - language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary ( using German ) : Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at ( ( : de : Exact name of German article ) ) ; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ( ( Translated sv Högertrafikomläggningen ) ) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia : Translation. Kungsgatan, Stockholm, on Dagen H., 3 September 1967, during the night Sweden had changed from left - side traffic to right - side traffic. Dagen H logo Left - hand traffic in Stockholm in 1966 Dagen H ( H day ), today usually called `` Högertrafikomläggningen '' ( `` The right - hand traffic diversion '' ), was the day on 3 September 1967, in which the traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left - hand side of the road to the right. The `` H '' stands for `` Högertrafik '', the Swedish word for `` right traffic ''. It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden 's history. Headlamp sold in Sweden not long before Dagen H. Opaque decal blocks the lens portion that would provide low beam upkick to the right, and bears warning `` Not to be removed before 3 September 1967 ''. A pair of colored gloves used in 1967 by Swedish authorities in order to remind drivers they should drive on the right as the traffic was changed Contents 1 Background 2 The switch 3 Results 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Background There were various major arguments for the change : All of Sweden 's neighbours ( including Norway and Finland, with which Sweden has land borders ) drove on the right, with 5 million vehicles crossing those borders annually. Approximately 90 percent of Swedes drove left - hand drive ( LHD ) vehicles. This led to many head - on collisions when passing on narrow two - lane highways, which were common in Sweden due to the fact that the country 's low population density and traffic levels made road - building expensive in per capita terms. City buses were among the very few vehicles that conformed to the normal opposite - steering wheel rule, being right - hand drive. However, the change was widely unpopular ; in a 1955 referendum, 83 percent voted to keep driving on the left. Nevertheless, on May 10, 1963, the Swedish Parliament ( Riksdagen ) approved the Prime Minister Tage Erlander 's government proposal of an introduction of right hand traffic in 1967, as the number of cars on the road tripled from 500 000 to 1.5 million, and was expected to reach 2.8 million by 1975. A body known as Statens Högertrafikkommission ( HTK ) ( `` the state right - hand traffic commission '' ) was established to oversee the changeover. It also began implementing a four - year education programme, with the advice of psychologists. The campaign included displaying the Dagen H logo on various commemorative items, including milk cartons and underwear. Swedish television held a contest for songs about the change ; the winning entry was `` Håll dig till höger, Svensson '' ( ' Keep to the right, Svensson ' ) written by Expressen journalist by Peter Himmelstrand and performed by The Telstars. As Dagen H neared, every intersection was equipped with an extra set of poles and traffic signals wrapped in black plastic. Workers roamed the streets early in the morning on Dagen H to remove the plastic. Similarly, a parallel set of lines were painted on the roads with white paint, then covered with black tape. Before Dagen H, Swedish roads had used yellow lines. The switch On Dagen H, Sunday, 3 September, all non-essential traffic was banned from the roads from 01 : 00 to 06 : 00. Any vehicles on the roads during that time had to follow special rules. All vehicles had to come to a complete stop at 04 : 50, then carefully change to the right - hand side of the road and stop again before being allowed to proceed at 05 : 00. In Stockholm and Malmö, however, the ban was longer -- from 10 : 00 on Saturday until 15 : 00 on Sunday -- to allow work crews to reconfigure intersections. Certain other towns also saw an extended ban, from 15 : 00 on Saturday until 15 : 00 on Sunday. One - way streets presented unique problems. Bus stops had to be constructed on the other side of the street. Intersections had to be reshaped to allow traffic to merge. In order to avoid blinding oncoming drivers, all Swedish vehicles had to have their original left - hand - traffic headlamps replaced with right - hand units. One of the reasons the Riksdag pushed ahead with Dagen H despite public unpopularity was that most vehicles in Sweden at the time used inexpensive, standardized round headlamps, but the trend towards more expensive model - specific headlamps began in Continental Europe and was expected to spread through most other parts of the world. Further delay in changing over from left - to right - hand traffic would have greatly increased the cost burden to vehicle owners. Results The relatively smooth changeover saw a reduction in the number of accidents. On the day of the change, only 157 minor accidents were reported, of which only 32 involved personal injuries, with only a handful serious. On the Monday following Dagen H, there were 125 reported traffic accidents, compared to a range of 130 to 198 for previous Mondays, none of them fatal. Experts suggested that changing to driving on the right reduced accidents while overtaking, as people already drove left - hand drive vehicles, thereby having a better view of the road ahead ; additionally, the change made a marked surge in perceived risk that exceeded the target level and thus was followed by very cautious behaviour that caused a major decrease in road fatalities. Indeed, fatal car - to - car and car - to - pedestrian accidents dropped sharply as a result, and the number of motor insurance claims went down by 40 %. These initial improvements did not last, however. The number of motor insurance claims returned to ' normal ' over the next six weeks and, by 1969, the accident rates were back to the levels seen before the change. Trams in central Stockholm, in Helsingborg and most lines in Malmö were withdrawn and replaced by buses, and over one thousand new buses were purchased with doors on the right - hand side. Some 8,000 older buses were retrofitted to provide doors on both sides, while Gothenburg and Malmö exported their right - hand drive ( RHD ) buses to Pakistan and Kenya. The modification of buses, paid by the state, was the largest cost of the change. In Gothenburg and Norrköping, and in two Stockholm suburbs, tram networks continued to operate. Although all road traffic in Sweden became right handed, metro and railway systems did not switch to new rules and continue to drive on the left, with the exception of tram systems. Additionally, many of them were abandoned as a result of Dagen H ; only the trams in Norrköping and Gothenburg and three suburban lines in the Stockholm area ( Nockebybanan and Lidingöbanan ) survived. Gothenburg had high cost for rebuilding trams, while Stockholm had cost only for bus purchasing, since the remaining lines had bidirectional trams with doors on both sides. In any event, most trams in Stockholm were replaced by the metro, a decision made long before the Dagen H decision. Fellow Nordic country Iceland changed to driving on the right in May 1968. See also 730 ( transport ) H - dagurinn Right and left hand traffic Switch to right - hand traffic in Czechoslovakia Transport in Sweden References ^ Jump up to : 50 år sedan : Så gick det till när Sverige fick högertrafik, Expressen, 1 September 2017 Jump up ^ Kommer du ihåg när Sverige fick högertrafik 1967 ?, Året Runt, 1 September 2017 ^ Jump up to : Réalités, Issues 200 - 205, Société d'études et publications économiques, 1967, page 95 ^ Jump up to : Switch to the Right, TIME, 15 Sep. 1967 Jump up ^ `` Transport in Stockholm in the 1960s ''. Includes photographs of a RHD bus in Odenplan, 1962 and a RHD trolleybus in Vattugatan in 1964. Jump up ^ News from Sweden, Issues 840 - 858, Swedish Information Service, Swedish Consulate General, 1963, page 35 Jump up ^ Riksdagens protokoll, Kungl. Boktr., 1966, page 8 Jump up ^ `` Dagen H ''. Retrieved 2 October 2014. Jump up ^ The Telstars - Håll dig till höger, Svensson, YouTube, 23 February 2013 Jump up ^ Sweden Makes Change - Over to Driving on Right, Glasgow Herald, 4 September 1967 ^ Jump up to : Et tu, Iceland ? Another change to right hand driving, Autocar, 23 May 1968 Jump up ^ `` Swedish Motorists Move To Right ''. Montreal Gazette. 5 September 1967. Jump up ^ Adams, John ( 1985 ). Risk and Freedom : Record of Road Safety Regulation. Brefi Press. ISBN 978 - 0948537059. Jump up ^ `` Dagen H : The day Sweden switched sides of the road ''. Washington Post. February 17, 2012. Retrieved 2 October 2014. Jump up ^ Behavioural Adaptation and Road Safety : Theory, Evidence and Action. CRC Press. p. 67. ISBN 978 - 1 - 4398 - 5667 - 3. Jump up ^ Public transport was affected, 22 February 1997 External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dagen H. Television coverage of changeover, Sveriges Television The Day Sweden Turned Right, BBC World Service, 2 September 2016 Border crossing between Sweden and Finland, 1967 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dagen_H&oldid=811324981 '' Categories : Transport articles needing translation from Swedish Wikipedia Traffic law Transport in Sweden 1967 in Sweden 1967 in transport Driving in Sweden Hidden categories : Use dmy dates from June 2013 Articles needing additional references from August 2010 All articles needing additional references Articles to be expanded from December 2014 All articles to be expanded Talk Contents About Wikipedia Afrikaans Asturianu Беларуская Беларуская ( тарашкевіца ) ‎ Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara Français 한국어 Italiano עברית Magyar Nederlands 日本 語 Norsk Polski Português Русский Slovenčina Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 20 November 2017, at 22 : 23. 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Question: what side of the road to drive in sweden
Answer: right-hand