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Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

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Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#71

Post by anoncake »

dmos62 wrote: post #64
moltar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burma is a fascinating story. They switched, like Sweden, but without planning. The reason? A fortune teller said the country would be prosperous. And now people exit the bus into the traffic instead of the sidewalk. Because nobody has the money to replace the buses or cars.

They could switch sides of the road, instead of replacing the vehicles. Moving and rotating all the signs is probably cheaper and easier.

Replacing the vehicles is effectively free, if you do it slowly as you replace vehicles anyway.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#72

Post by Broken_Hippo »

yegle wrote: post #22

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

I don't think it is impossible, and many products wouldn't seem to change at all. 2L of milk visually looks like about a half gallon. (I am American and moved to Norway). Canned goods look to be around the same size. And so on.

Speed limits would take a bit of getting used to in some older cars, but I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over. Buying gas would take a little time, but it'll work out. A meter isn't all that different from a yard and rulers are cheap ways to measure centimeters. Signage and things will help folks do the conversion.

Temperature and distance, however, will take a bit longer. It has taken me a while to really understand how warm 10C is without having to convert the temperature, but I'm sure we can communicate such things. I still have no real handle on how far 100km is nor how long that would take to drive, though I know it is too far to walk.

Mostly, it would take legislation and money to start changing things (signs, for example) over. This would need to happen in 2 different stages so that for a decent time, both would be shown. Some things would just be immediately updated without issue.

Some of the sticker things probably needs to be funded as well - such as gas stations. I don't think they'd need to replace the entire pump, but it is a possibility especially for older stations.

Oh, and again, legislation needs to be there. In the current political climate, this is going to be a real hurdle and I can imagine it taking a patriotic tone much like the debate of teaching cursive writing.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#73

Post by jacobush »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #46
advantager wrote: post #8

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…

I heard somewhere that it used to be common in northern Italy to buy right hand drive cars (steering wheel on the right) for the same reason, it was better to have the driver at the edge of the road so that they could tell if they were too close to the edge on mountain roads with poorly defined edges and without crash barriers.

And the same in Sweden but the other way around - most cars had the steering wheel on the left even before driving on the right. Traditionally, it was better to be able to see where the narrow roads ended.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#74

Post by jacobush »

nemetroid wrote: post #68
drallison wrote: post #42

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.

> 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%A4ggnin...

Thank you! Finally I get an explanation why in my youth some roads had yellow markings. I always thought the yellow markings was prettier.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#75

Post by jacobush »

alkonaut wrote: post #48
rootusrootus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 s…

All screws here are metric, except for PC computer cases, harddrives etc. And screens, as mentioned. Everywhere the US influences global technology, the imperial units show up.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#76

Post by jacobush »

tragomaskhalos wrote: post #70
dTal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

See also: QWERTY keyboard

Debunked though?!

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#77

Post by ghaff »

kinow wrote: post #6

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…

It makes me much more cautious crossing streets in London than in a typical US city. I simply don't trust my instincts about where traffic might be coming from.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#78

Post by tsukurimashou »

felipemnoa wrote: post #11
kinow wrote: post #6

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…

>>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.

The order matters too and is different if people drive on the left or on the right

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#79

Post by dpark »

DrScump wrote: post #52
dpark wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if space agencies have agreed to build space vehicles on a standardized side. Because space vehicles often need to share space roads?

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

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.

Re: Dagen H: The Day Sweden Switched Traffic Sides

#80

Post by asjo »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #72
yegle wrote: post #22

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

I don't think it is impossible, and many products wouldn't seem to change at all. 2L of milk visually looks like about a half gallon. (I am American and moved to Norway). Canned goods look to be around the same size. And so on. Speed limits would take a bit of getting used to in some older cars, but I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over. Buying gas would take a little time, but it'll…

> I think most newer cars with digital dashboards would just switch over.

I used to drive a 1986 Cadillac Eldorado which simply had a sliding switch to go from imperial to metric.

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