40 ms·

Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

124 points by Clepsydra 7y ago

PTRFRLL 7y ago
99% Invisible has a nice podcast on this: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/h-day/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/h-day/
seppin 7y ago
Of all things why does this keep getting posted here? Curious
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dTal 7y ago
  It's an interesting question. A theory that occurs to me is that much of modern computing is the way it is due to network effects and historical baggage. We all fantasize of ways we could be doing things better, if only we could have a clean start. For us, the story of an entire country seamlessly jumping from a local optimum to a global one is practically pornographic.
  - seppin 7y ago
    Interesting take, thanks.
  - tragomaskhalos 7y ago
    See also: QWERTY keyboard
    - jacobush 7y ago
      Debunked though?!
nkrumm 7y ago
Fascinating. For some interesting US history on the topic, see: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/right.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/right.cfm In particular I found this interesting: "[...] most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving [mirroring how horse-drawn carriages had been set up]. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."
kinow 7y ago
Would be great to have - someday - everybody driving on the same side of the road. I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. I moved from a country that drives on the right lane, to one in the Commonwealth, driving on the left lane. It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing, and as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning). And not all cars here have the seats on the right side. You can find cars that were imported and have the driver seat on the left. Or old/classic cars too.
- dpark 7y ago
  > I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. Because space vehicles often need to share space roads?
  - DrScump 7y ago
    Not generally, but note that the Mars Climate Orbiter[0] was lost due to an SAE-Metric conversion failure: [0] https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf
    - dpark 7y ago
      What does that have to do with imaginary roads in space? I would also not consider a planetary rover to be a “space vehicle”. Being on a planet is rather the opposite of space.
- felipemnoa 7y ago
  >>It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. Reason is that bicycles sometimes drive in the opposite direction as cars. Also, sometimes cars, for whatever reason, will drive in reverse.
advantager 7y ago
On most mining properties in North America and elsewhere, driving is strictly on the left. This is because haul trucks have such large blind spots to their right side, it's best to give them a clear view of the side of the road (which may be a sheer drop-off). I've done a fair amount of driving on site, and it's a bit of a trip. Usually right after the main gate there is a cross-over point where you yield and switch sides. And don't forget to drive on the right after you leave for the day! https://www.flickr.com/photos/31603030@N08/24313254363 https://www.flickr.com/photos/31603030@N08/24313254363
- chipperyman573 7y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know about the blind spot problem for trucks. Is there a reason we drive on the right in America, then? I kind of assumed we just randomly picked it because neither answer solves a problem with the alternative (or the country we copied randomly picked, I don't know the full history), but it seems like there's a pretty solid argument to always drive on the left (at least, there's no reason to drive on the right)
  - paradisechris 7y ago
    If America drove on the left, the driver side would be on the right instead. This would only shift the truck blind spot to the other side meaning they would still drive opposite either way.
    - chipperyman573 7y ago
      Why do you have to drive closer to the inside of the street?
      - rootusrootus 7y ago
        Probably because you are routinely driving within a few feet of traffic coming the other way and it's easier to tell where the edge of your vehicle is when you're practically sitting on it versus sitting on the other side of the car.
kd5bjo 7y ago
See also, the day the US changed its rail gauge: http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html
dboreham 7y ago
Blame Napoleon
moltar 7y ago
Feels like The Big Rewrite, but successful
yegle 7y ago
Now I wish US can switch to the metric system with a similar endeavor, but surely it's impossible now. There was an attempt in the 60s to convert to metric in US. If you are in SF bay area, go check this out: https://images.app.goo.gl/JBqNpATVWgwi2qFh8 https://images.app.goo.gl/JBqNpATVWgwi2qFh8
- lscotte 7y ago
  That went into the 70s - when I was in school we learned both metric and imperial because the USA was in the process of switching. Wish we had followed through...
- perilunar 7y ago
  It's inevitable that you will switch, you are just making it much more painful than it needs to be. Did you notice that the SpaceX webcasts only use metric for the speed and altitude displays?
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    The only people that think it's painful are the folks who keep telling us we need to switch. We know the measurements we use pretty well, and even then there are plenty of things already measured in metric. Plus, it's not like everyone else has fully switched. The UK still seems perfectly comfortable talking about weight in stones and all their cars measure speed in mph just like the US.
    - alkonaut 7y ago
      Yes nearly every country is in some sort of hybrid state. In Europe you have the UK with one foot in the empire, but other countries also mix in e.g inches for tv’s, car wheel sizes and so on. It’s almost not a measurement, it’s more like a size scale (you don’t measure your wheels in absolute terms but you know what 19” rims look like compared to 17”). Ironically we put mm sized tyres on these rims. I think the US should try to switch one area at a time. Just like we will eventually measure Tv’s in metric (Australia does already I believe) the US could probably ease into metric by adding more and more areas that use it.
mjklin 7y ago
There was a song at the time to help folks remember: “Håll dig till höger, Svensson” (Keep to the right, Svensson) [0] [0]: https://youtu.be/6ODZtwkBYPs https://youtu.be/6ODZtwkBYPs
mixmastamyk 7y ago
Now UK and Japan can give it a try. ;-)
- perilunar 7y ago
  Not going to happen. UK and Japan are both island nations (as are Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia), so there is no pressing need to change. And India is probably too large to change.
  - bloak 7y ago
    And Pakistan won't change because the camels wouldn't agree. That's the story I heard, anyway. They were considering the change but then someone pointed out that the camel caravans continue through the night with the driver asleep on one of them and the camels know which side of the road they go on and if you tried to argue with them about it, well, they can be cantankerous, apparently.
    - perilunar 7y ago
      That's hilarious. I wonder how traffic changes affect dogs and other animals that cross the road often?
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  Switching today would be virtually impossible. Just think of all the freeway interchanges that would have to be rebuilt, costing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.
  - 7952 7y ago
    I think most interchanges would be fairly symmetrical. Although a lot of bellmouths at junctions would need to be changed to accommodate HGVs. And lanes approaching roundabouts would need to be moved.
1e-9 7y ago
A similar switch happened in 1970, when the Prime Minister of Myanmar suddenly and mysteriously decided that the country would switch to driving on the right-hand side of the road. The crazy thing is that the vast majority of vehicles today still have steering wheels on the right because the country has been buying used cars from Japan for years. Large vehicles like buses need a person acting as a spotter on the left side of the vehicle for safety! The Government finally mandated that, starting in 2017, imported vehicles must have steering wheels on the left side. Many drivers did not want to switch and thus there was a mad rush to buy cars in 2016, which the government was forced to counter by temporarily shutting-down imports.
wallace_f 7y ago
Interesting: >traffic accidents fell dramatically due to the extra caution people drove with
perilunar 7y ago
The map in the article comes from (uncredited) the Wikipedia page 'Left- and right-hand traffic'. [0] Btw, 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic
- phillc73 7y ago
  > 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought. India would be a huge proportion of that.
drallison 7y ago
I was in Sweden on the day they changed over. It was carefully planned. All of the signage was switched over night--old signs removed or covered and new ones revealed. I don't remember what was done for lane markings. Drivers had been practicing for months. Right-hand drive cars persisted for a while. Everything went surprisingly smoothly.
- nemetroid 7y ago
  > I don't remember what was done for lane markings. The Swedish Wikipedia article[0] mentions this. In conjunction with the change-over, lane markings went from yellow to white. This article doesn't mention it, but I recall reading that some roads had both colours during the transition. 0: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggningen#Permanenta_regler https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggnin...
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Thank you! Finally I get an explanation why in my youth some roads had yellow markings. I always thought the yellow markings was prettier.

124 points by Clepsydra 7y ago

99% Invisible has a nice podcast on this: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/h-day/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/h-day/

seppin 7y ago

Of all things why does this keep getting posted here? Curious

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dTal 7y ago
It's an interesting question. A theory that occurs to me is that much of modern computing is the way it is due to network effects and historical baggage. We all fantasize of ways we could be doing things better, if only we could have a clean start. For us, the story of an entire country seamlessly jumping from a local optimum to a global one is practically pornographic.
- seppin 7y ago
  Interesting take, thanks.
- tragomaskhalos 7y ago
  See also: QWERTY keyboard
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Debunked though?!

nkrumm 7y ago

Fascinating. For some interesting US history on the topic, see: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/right.cfm https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/right.cfm In particular I found this interesting: "[...] most American cars produced before 1910 were made with right-side driver seating, although intended for right-side driving [mirroring how horse-drawn carriages had been set up]. Such vehicles remained in common use until 1915, and the 1908 Model T was the first of Ford's cars to feature a left-side driving position."

kinow 7y ago

Would be great to have - someday - everybody driving on the same side of the road. I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. I moved from a country that drives on the right lane, to one in the Commonwealth, driving on the left lane. It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing, and as a driver (roundabouts are especially challenging in the beginning). And not all cars here have the seats on the right side. You can find cars that were imported and have the driver seat on the left. Or old/classic cars too.

dpark 7y ago
> I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. Because space vehicles often need to share space roads?
- DrScump 7y ago
  Not generally, but note that the Mars Climate Orbiter[0] was lost due to an SAE-Metric conversion failure: [0] https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf
  - dpark 7y ago
    What does that have to do with imaginary roads in space? I would also not consider a planetary rover to be a “space vehicle”. Being on a planet is rather the opposite of space.
felipemnoa 7y ago
>>It's interesting the amount of adjusting it takes for you as pedestrian to get used to which side to make sure to look to before crossing You should always look both ways regardless of which side a car is driving on. Reason is that bicycles sometimes drive in the opposite direction as cars. Also, sometimes cars, for whatever reason, will drive in reverse.

advantager 7y ago

On most mining properties in North America and elsewhere, driving is strictly on the left. This is because haul trucks have such large blind spots to their right side, it's best to give them a clear view of the side of the road (which may be a sheer drop-off). I've done a fair amount of driving on site, and it's a bit of a trip. Usually right after the main gate there is a cross-over point where you yield and switch sides. And don't forget to drive on the right after you leave for the day! https://www.flickr.com/photos/31603030@N08/24313254363 https://www.flickr.com/photos/31603030@N08/24313254363

chipperyman573 7y ago
Interesting, I didn't know about the blind spot problem for trucks. Is there a reason we drive on the right in America, then? I kind of assumed we just randomly picked it because neither answer solves a problem with the alternative (or the country we copied randomly picked, I don't know the full history), but it seems like there's a pretty solid argument to always drive on the left (at least, there's no reason to drive on the right)
- paradisechris 7y ago
  If America drove on the left, the driver side would be on the right instead. This would only shift the truck blind spot to the other side meaning they would still drive opposite either way.
  - chipperyman573 7y ago
    Why do you have to drive closer to the inside of the street?
    - rootusrootus 7y ago
      Probably because you are routinely driving within a few feet of traffic coming the other way and it's easier to tell where the edge of your vehicle is when you're practically sitting on it versus sitting on the other side of the car.

kd5bjo 7y ago

See also, the day the US changed its rail gauge: http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html http://southern.railfan.net/ties/1966/66-8/gauge.html

dboreham 7y ago

Blame Napoleon

moltar 7y ago

Feels like The Big Rewrite, but successful

yegle 7y ago

Now I wish US can switch to the metric system with a similar endeavor, but surely it's impossible now. There was an attempt in the 60s to convert to metric in US. If you are in SF bay area, go check this out: https://images.app.goo.gl/JBqNpATVWgwi2qFh8 https://images.app.goo.gl/JBqNpATVWgwi2qFh8

lscotte 7y ago
That went into the 70s - when I was in school we learned both metric and imperial because the USA was in the process of switching. Wish we had followed through...
perilunar 7y ago
It's inevitable that you will switch, you are just making it much more painful than it needs to be. Did you notice that the SpaceX webcasts only use metric for the speed and altitude displays?
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  The only people that think it's painful are the folks who keep telling us we need to switch. We know the measurements we use pretty well, and even then there are plenty of things already measured in metric. Plus, it's not like everyone else has fully switched. The UK still seems perfectly comfortable talking about weight in stones and all their cars measure speed in mph just like the US.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Yes nearly every country is in some sort of hybrid state. In Europe you have the UK with one foot in the empire, but other countries also mix in e.g inches for tv’s, car wheel sizes and so on. It’s almost not a measurement, it’s more like a size scale (you don’t measure your wheels in absolute terms but you know what 19” rims look like compared to 17”). Ironically we put mm sized tyres on these rims. I think the US should try to switch one area at a time. Just like we will eventually measure Tv’s in metric (Australia does already I believe) the US could probably ease into metric by adding more and more areas that use it.

mjklin 7y ago

There was a song at the time to help folks remember: “Håll dig till höger, Svensson” (Keep to the right, Svensson) [0] [0]: https://youtu.be/6ODZtwkBYPs https://youtu.be/6ODZtwkBYPs

mixmastamyk 7y ago

Now UK and Japan can give it a try. ;-)

perilunar 7y ago
Not going to happen. UK and Japan are both island nations (as are Australia, New Zealand, and Indonesia), so there is no pressing need to change. And India is probably too large to change.
- bloak 7y ago
  And Pakistan won't change because the camels wouldn't agree. That's the story I heard, anyway. They were considering the change but then someone pointed out that the camel caravans continue through the night with the driver asleep on one of them and the camels know which side of the road they go on and if you tried to argue with them about it, well, they can be cantankerous, apparently.
  - perilunar 7y ago
    That's hilarious. I wonder how traffic changes affect dogs and other animals that cross the road often?
frosted-flakes 7y ago
Switching today would be virtually impossible. Just think of all the freeway interchanges that would have to be rebuilt, costing tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.
- 7952 7y ago
  I think most interchanges would be fairly symmetrical. Although a lot of bellmouths at junctions would need to be changed to accommodate HGVs. And lanes approaching roundabouts would need to be moved.

1e-9 7y ago

A similar switch happened in 1970, when the Prime Minister of Myanmar suddenly and mysteriously decided that the country would switch to driving on the right-hand side of the road. The crazy thing is that the vast majority of vehicles today still have steering wheels on the right because the country has been buying used cars from Japan for years. Large vehicles like buses need a person acting as a spotter on the left side of the vehicle for safety! The Government finally mandated that, starting in 2017, imported vehicles must have steering wheels on the left side. Many drivers did not want to switch and thus there was a mad rush to buy cars in 2016, which the government was forced to counter by temporarily shutting-down imports.

wallace_f 7y ago

Interesting: >traffic accidents fell dramatically due to the extra caution people drove with

perilunar 7y ago

The map in the article comes from (uncredited) the Wikipedia page 'Left- and right-hand traffic'. [0] Btw, 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic

phillc73 7y ago
> 35% of the world's population drive to the left, which is much larger than I thought. India would be a huge proportion of that.

drallison 7y ago

I was in Sweden on the day they changed over. It was carefully planned. All of the signage was switched over night--old signs removed or covered and new ones revealed. I don't remember what was done for lane markings. Drivers had been practicing for months. Right-hand drive cars persisted for a while. Everything went surprisingly smoothly.

nemetroid 7y ago
> I don't remember what was done for lane markings. The Swedish Wikipedia article[0] mentions this. In conjunction with the change-over, lane markings went from yellow to white. This article doesn't mention it, but I recall reading that some roads had both colours during the transition. 0: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggningen#Permanenta_regler https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6gertrafikoml%C3%A4ggnin...
- jacobush 7y ago
  Thank you! Finally I get an explanation why in my youth some roads had yellow markings. I always thought the yellow markings was prettier.