Why Sweden Changed Driving Sides Overnight

Amy Shira Teitel
9 min readMar 28, 2022
Jan Collsiöö — Så var det. Public Domain.

September 3, 1967, was a big day for Sweden. Högertrafikomläggningen, or more simply, Dagen-H. It was the day the country switched from driving on the left to the right side of the road.

It was, predictably, absolute chaos, but the act of switching sides isn’t the most surprising part. It’s that the switch happened in 1967 when there were 1,976,248 registered vehicles Sweden. With that many…

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Amy Shira Teitel

Historian and author of Fighting for Space (February 2020) from Grand Central Publishing. Also public speaker, TV personality, and YouTuber. [The Vintage Space]