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Switching to driving on the right
Scotland to switch to driving on the right if independence given green light
Scottish nationalist leaders will attempt this week to give the trailing yes campaign a boost by revealing a series of measures aimed at showing what an independent country would look like.
Seeking to capitalise on the arguments this week about "bullying" England and keeping the pound, they will unveil an ambitious scheme to scrap the current – English inspired – road signage system. M for motorway will be replaced with a new S – for Scotland and the A trunk roads will become N roads – for Nationalist in honour of the new country. Blue will be the predominant backing colour.
The scale of the scheme is enormous: Scotland has 2,174 miles of road, including the 273-mile long A9 stretching from Edinburgh to John O'Groats – known as the "spine of Scotland".
It is estimated that 58,000 signs will have to be replaced – scrapping the famous road sign font known as "Transport" with a new Celtic-tinged typeface, Proclaimer. And it could be that they may take the opportunity to renumber all of Scotland's roads, beginning at one.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/01/scotland-driving-on-right-independence-road-scheme
Scottish nationalist leaders will attempt this week to give the trailing yes campaign a boost by revealing a series of measures aimed at showing what an independent country would look like.
Seeking to capitalise on the arguments this week about "bullying" England and keeping the pound, they will unveil an ambitious scheme to scrap the current – English inspired – road signage system. M for motorway will be replaced with a new S – for Scotland and the A trunk roads will become N roads – for Nationalist in honour of the new country. Blue will be the predominant backing colour.
The scale of the scheme is enormous: Scotland has 2,174 miles of road, including the 273-mile long A9 stretching from Edinburgh to John O'Groats – known as the "spine of Scotland".
It is estimated that 58,000 signs will have to be replaced – scrapping the famous road sign font known as "Transport" with a new Celtic-tinged typeface, Proclaimer. And it could be that they may take the opportunity to renumber all of Scotland's roads, beginning at one.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/01/scotland-driving-on-right-independence-road-scheme
April Fools' joke ?
Doesn't matter, Sweden did it.
...
On September 3, 1967, at 04.50 in the morning, the traffic everywhere in Sweden was directed over to the right side of the road and stopped. Everything stood absolutely still for 10 minutes, and at 05.00, when it started again, all road users in Sweden from heavy trucks to cyclists were already on the right side of the road, and they have stayed there since.
Left: The magic H date and a very clever symbol to remember it by. Right: Kungsgatan in Stockholm on the 3rd of September 1967, 04.50 in the morning. The traffic is directed from the left to the right side of the street and halted. A lot of people witnessed this happen in spite of the early morning hour. There is a nice black/white Volvo Duett police vehicle standing by the kerb in the lower right corner of the picture.
Roads, crossings, roundabouts, flyovers etc had already been redesigned and some 360,000 road signs were changed during the night. The date had also been preceeded by an intensive national campaign, informing people about what was going to happen that day.Some 130,000 reminder signs – a large H for Höger (right in Swedish) – had been put up everywhere along streets and roads, and most cars had an H-sticker on the dashboard in front of the driver in order to remind him or her. Very few cars in Sweden were right-hand drive at the time, despite the fact that Swedish road users had been living with left side traffic for 233 years!
There was also a temporary but strict speed limit of 30 kph in built-up areas and 50 kph on all other roads during September 3, which was a Sunday. In total, only some 150 minor accidents were reported during that day. The idea worked very well. The total cost of the transition at the time was SEK 628 million, appr equivalent to EUR 64 million.
http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/history/driving_on_right.shtml
On September 3, 1967, at 04.50 in the morning, the traffic everywhere in Sweden was directed over to the right side of the road and stopped. Everything stood absolutely still for 10 minutes, and at 05.00, when it started again, all road users in Sweden from heavy trucks to cyclists were already on the right side of the road, and they have stayed there since.
Left: The magic H date and a very clever symbol to remember it by. Right: Kungsgatan in Stockholm on the 3rd of September 1967, 04.50 in the morning. The traffic is directed from the left to the right side of the street and halted. A lot of people witnessed this happen in spite of the early morning hour. There is a nice black/white Volvo Duett police vehicle standing by the kerb in the lower right corner of the picture.
Roads, crossings, roundabouts, flyovers etc had already been redesigned and some 360,000 road signs were changed during the night. The date had also been preceeded by an intensive national campaign, informing people about what was going to happen that day.Some 130,000 reminder signs – a large H for Höger (right in Swedish) – had been put up everywhere along streets and roads, and most cars had an H-sticker on the dashboard in front of the driver in order to remind him or her. Very few cars in Sweden were right-hand drive at the time, despite the fact that Swedish road users had been living with left side traffic for 233 years!
There was also a temporary but strict speed limit of 30 kph in built-up areas and 50 kph on all other roads during September 3, which was a Sunday. In total, only some 150 minor accidents were reported during that day. The idea worked very well. The total cost of the transition at the time was SEK 628 million, appr equivalent to EUR 64 million.
http://www.volvoclub.org.uk/history/driving_on_right.shtml
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Maybe we can campaign the left lane hogs to drive in the right lane in solidarity with the Scotts.
