In 1966 a nationwide mission was begun to get all Swedish motorists and cyclists to change the habits of a lifetime and begin driving on the right-hand side of the road for the first time.
The potentially catastrophic changeover would take place on 3 September 1967.
The day was simply known as Dagen H (H-Day). Its mission was to put Sweden on the same path as the rest of its continental European neighbors, most of which had long followed the global trend to drive cars on the right.
Despite driving on the left, many Swedes already owned cars with the steering wheel on the left-hand side of the vehicle, since many bought from abroad and major Swedish car manufacturers such as Volvo had chosen to follow the trend. However, there were concerns that this was a factor in rising numbers of fatal road traffic accidents, up from 595 in 1950 to 1,313 in 1966, alongside an increased frequency of collisions around Sweden’s borders with Denmark, Norway and Finland.
In the run-up to H-Day, each local municipality had to deal with issues ranging from repainting road markings to relocating bus stops and traffic lights, and redesigning intersections, bicycle lanes and one-way streets.
Hundreds of new buses were purchased by municipalities around the country, and around 8,000 older buses were reconfigured to provide doors on both sides. The total cost of amending public transportation would be astronomical!
Some 360,000 street signs had to be switched nationwide, which largely took place on a single day before the move to right-hand driving, with council workers joined by the military and working late into the night to ensure the task got done before H-Day formally revved into gear on Sunday morning. All but essential traffic was banned from the roads.
The most challenging thing was the shortage of time in which to accomplish this mind-boggling feat!
But as Dagen H finally dawned, the hard work of all appeared to pay off. Swedes began cautiously driving on the right-hand side of roads around the country at precisely 5am on 3 September 1967, following a radio countdown.
Olof Palme, the Swedish Minister of Communication (who later became Prime Minister), went on air to say that the move represented “a very large change in our daily existence, our everyday life”
The information campaign – costing around 43 million kronor (out of the total 628,349,774 kronor spent) – included television, radio and newspaper advertisements, and talks in schools. Dagen H had its own logo, emblazoned on billboards, buses and milk cartons. They needed a propaganda campaign not to reach 99% of everyone but to reach 100%.”
And Satan expected God’s people to believe that God Himself authorized the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week OVERNIGHT and WITHOUT ANY PRIOR WARNING WHATSOVER THAT THIS CHANGE WOULD TAKE PLACE IN JERUSALEM, the city where the Sabbath was more honored than any other city on earth??? Yes, Satan did expect that because he was super confident in his powers to blind and deceive. And, do you know something, he was right!
How Satan must have reveled in his power to deceive when professing Christians began to believe God moved His eternal holy Sabbath to the day long honored by the devotees of the Sun god and began treating God’s day of rest as a normal workday!
Friend, the question I now ask is, “Has he deceived you, too??”
Christ’s Aged Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley