What would it take to switch Australia to join Europe, US, China and most of the world to drive left-hand drive cars?

At 04:50 on the morning of Sunday, September 3, 1967 Sweden officially went nuts.

Anyone on the road at that time had been told to pull over and stop. Then, 10 minutes later, led by a radio countdown, the government instruction was to start driving on the other side of the road.

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It was 'Dagen H', short for Dagen Högertrafikomläggningen (Right-hand traffic diversion day) and the crazy part was, almost all vehicles on Swedish roads at the time were left-hand drive anyway, making overtaking frighteningly dodgy.

An increase in fatal crashes in Sweden was cited as a key motivation for the change. Even Volvo had made the call to produce LHD models for domestic consumption because the rest of Europe and most of the automotive world was left-hand drive.

Despite ongoing public reluctance, the Swedish Parliament voted almost six to one in favour of making the switch, largely because the population and number of cars on the road were increasing rapidly in the early 1960s and it was looking like a case of now or never. 

So, for multiple good reasons it made sense to make the switch and despite fears of automotive armageddon, it went surprisingly smoothly with fewer crashes recorded on Dagen H than the typical daily average.

Then Swedish Minister of Communication (later Prime Minister) Olof Palme told a national radio audience the move represented “a very large change in our daily existence, our everyday life".

“Never before has a country invested so much personal labour and money to achieve uniform international traffic rules,” he said.

Which is all very interesting, but why is it even remotely relevant to Australian drivers?

Well, imagine for a second that we followed suit and engineered our own ‘Chuck a U-ey’ day where we moved to become a left-hand car, right-hand road driving country.

All the new models so often denied us because we’re a small-volume, right-hand drive market would immediately be on the table.

The Ford Bronco and Bronco Sport as well as the new Dodge Charger from the USA. Easy entry for the ultra-cool new Renault 4 and 5 E-Tech? Not to mention any number of derivatives of models that do come here but we don’t see because right-hand drive is a no-go. Acura Integra Type S out of the States, anyone? 

But, what would it take? If Sweden can do it, why can’t we? 

Okay, let’s dive in. Here are the headline issues the National Chuck a U-ey Commission would need to address.

Planning studies: To set milestone goals, delegate authority, identify potential problems and guide roll-out.

Budget: Local, state and federal governments chipping in the hundreds of millions (if not multiple billions) of dollars required to fund the initiative with the cooperation of their relevant public service departments. Easy.

Public education: Sweden started its education campaign four years out from Dagen H. The who, what, when, where, why and how of the program, delivered in stages, using multiple communication channels to get the entire country onboard and ready.

The Dagen H logo became a fixture on everything from TV and billboards to buses and milk cartons. Schools set up special traffic classes and there was a contest to decide on a theme song to support the switch, ‘Håll dig till höger, Svensson’ by The Telstars reaching number five on the Swedish charts. 

Logistics: Armies of thoroughly educated and carefully trained personnel (paid and volunteer) to manage and execute tasks in the lead up to change-over, all potential eventualities on the day and issues emerging afterwards. 

Roads: Assessing appropriate speed limits, changing kerbs, modifying islands and applying new pedestrian and cyclist markings.

Road markings: Potentially a multi-stage process impacting city, urban and suburban roads as well as highways and freeways. For Dagen H, a duplicate set of lines was painted on the roads then covered until the changeover day.  

Road signs: From speed and parking to direction and destination, hundreds of thousands of them would need to be reoriented or replaced. Installed ahead of time, they’d be wrapped ready for unveiling on Chuck a U-ey.

Switchable lane hardware: Interchanges on roads subject to peak and non-peak hour positioning would need to be reconfigured and reprogrammed.
 

Traffic lights: Relocation or replacement. That’s right… all of them.
 

Intersections: Reconfiguring intersections of every type and angle would include new line markings, kerbing and signage.

Off- and on-ramps: While some could morph from one role to the other, the majority would require reengineering including geotechnical assessment, as well as possible earthworks and new blacktop. 

Bus stops: The majority would need to be moved. And here’s the kicker, existing buses would need to be remanufactured to place entry/exit doors on the right. Who pays for that?!

Headlights: Vehicles would need to swap out left-hand headlights with right-hand appropriate units.  

In light of all that, we checked in with the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning for some current expert feedback and a spokesperson said, “Changing to driving on the right-hand side of the road is not something we are considering. 

“Doing so would be a costly exercise and one that requires national agreement,” they said. 

And aside from the vortex of political negotiation required to get things off the ground, they also raised the fact that, “All existing vehicles that are currently right-hand drive are not designed to be driven on the right-hand side of the road.

“This will affect driver judgement and potentially increase the crash risk. This is to do with the position of the driver on the road in relation to oncoming traffic,” they added. 

Not only that. How about these zingers the department offered up for consideration?

• Vehicle standards (Australian design rules) would need to be updated.
  
   
• All road rules, driving education and tests would need to be updated.
  
   
• Safety considerations associated with necessary behavioural changes, such as pedestrians needing to look the other way first before crossing a road.
   

So, yes, nothing major. Just allocating billions of dollars to a change most people wouldn’t want, that would potentially increase crash risk in the short to medium term and turn the local car business upside down.

Putting those considerations to one side, though, clearly Chuck a U-ey is a hugely important, future-focused, nation-building initiative to benefit all Australians... 

…and the Ford Bronco would be in local showrooms. 

Let’s do it!