1967 жылғы 3 қыркүйекте Швецияда қозғалысты сол жақтан оң жаққа өзгерту

3 Sept 1967 in Sweden, when traffic changed from left to right hand

Dagen H (H day), today usually called "Högertrafikomläggningen" , was on 3 September 1967, the day in which 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 hand traffic. It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden's history.

On Dagen H, Sunday, 3 September 1967, 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 come to a complete stop at 04:50, then carefully change to the right hand side of the road and stop again (to give others time to switch sides of the road and avoid a head on collision) before being allowed to proceed at 05:00. In Stockholm and Malmö, however, the ban was longerfrom 10:00 on Saturday until 15:00 on Sundayto 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.

The relatively smooth changeover saw a temporary 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 low number being 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 caused a marked surge in perceived risk that exceeded the actual 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 (which ultimately abolished its tram system in 1973) 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 left traffic buses to Pakistan and Kenya. Although all road traffic in Sweden changed to the right hand side, railways and metro systems did not switch to the new rule and continued 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 faced high costs for reconfiguring trams, while Stockholm's budget only covered purchasing new buses, 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, on a day known as H dagurinn.