On September 3, 1967, Sweden stopped traffic on its roads.
The time was 4:50 in the morning.
Cars halted. They crept across to the other side of the road and waited. Ten minutes later, traffic was allowed to resume, now moving on the right.
The operation was called Dagen H.
Until that morning, the country had driven on the left.
For 40 years, Swedes had refused to give that up.
Why change then?
In a 1955 referendum, 83 percent voted to keep driving on the left.
The government did not listen.
On May 10, 1963, parliament approved Prime Minister Tage Erlander's plan to switch to the right. The number of cars on the road had tripled.
Olof Palme, then Sweden's Minister for Communications and later prime minister, spoke about the change on the radio.
He called it "a very large change in our daily existence, our everyday life."
Overnight, crews reversed 350,000 road signs.
Soldiers, civil police, student traffic officers, and volunteers stood in the streets.
Crashes that day were few.
Few of them hurt anyone, and serious ones were rarer still.
The public said no.
The state turned right anyway.
Enjoyed the story?
Follow Colossal Facts for a new story every day.
Or watch them as short videos on Facebook →
