General Question

elbanditoroso's avatar

Have any countries ever switched driving from one side of the road to another?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33524points) May 10th, 2019

The US (and most countries in the world) drive on the right lanes. The former British Empire countries drive on the left.

In recent history, has any country ever made a change? (Left to right, or right to left)

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8 Answers

kritiper's avatar

Doubtful. Too many cars have the controls on the wrong side.

Lightlyseared's avatar

Sweeden in 1967. Google Dagen H.

gondwanalon's avatar

Samoa changed from driving on the right to driving on the left on 9–8-2009.

rebbel's avatar

Sweden, in one night, if I’m not mistaken.

Yellowdog's avatar

Norway did as well. I believe it was earlier than 1967, however.

It seems like the only problem was buses having their doors on the left side when they now polled over to the right at bus stops. Not sure how this was resolved but the transition went smoothly.

kritiper's avatar

Redacted. This is general.

JLeslie's avatar

Very interesting.

Here’s a Wikipedia link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H It talks about the buses in the “results” section.

Call_Me_Jay's avatar

Okinawa Japan switched from left to right under American occupation, and back to left in 1978.

I remember a TV news story about it. Traffic halted, people switched sides, traffic resumed.

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