- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the UK Government has been compelled by the EU within the last year to initiate a consultation paper evaluating a change for UK drivers to fall in to line with other EU States and drive on the right.
In sending the original EU Directive, Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc cited previous success when Sweden changed from left to right traffic.
No stranger to controversy, the plan had been originally mooted in 2005 by a previous Commissioner.
Commissioner Barrot was approved by the European Parliament in 2004 and made a Vice-President in the Barroso Commission. However shortly after he began work, UKIP MEP Nigel Farage revealed Barrot had previously been convicted of fraud in 2000. French President Jacques Chirac had granted him presidential amnesty. A fact the Commissioner did not disclose during his hearing to the Parliament. Despite calls from some MEPs for him to be suspended he remained in office.
A memo uncovered in the current administration from the President Jean-Claude Juncker to Bulc and copied to UK Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McCoughlin states that this time, the UK Government must complete a full evaluation and without National Opt Out
In a written reply the Rt Hon Patrick McCoughlin MP refused to confirm or deny the existence of the draft EU plan, merely commenting that "it would not be appropriate to comment on any prospective EU directive during the current UK referendum period". Pushed further, McCoughlin did confirm that he in fact has good experience driving on the right as he is an owner of a left hand drive Citroen at his holiday home in France
In 1967, 3 days of chaos ensued in the changeover period. A non-binding referendum on the introduction of right hand traffic was held in Sweden on 16 October 1955.
The voter turnout was 53.2%, and the suggestion failed by 15.5% against 82.9%.[1] However, eight years later, in 1963, the Riksdag approved the change. The traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right on 3 September 1967
Dagen H (H day), today mostly called "Högertrafikomläggningen" ("The right-hand traffic diversion"), was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The "H" stands for "Högertrafik", the Swedish word for "right traffic".
Trams in central Stockholm, in Helsingborg and most lines in Malmö were withdrawn and replaced by buses, and over one thousand new buses were purchased with doors on the right-hand side. Some 8,000 older buses were retrofitted to provide doors on both sides, while Gothenburg exported its RHD buses to Pakistan and Kenya. The modification of buses, paid by the state, was the largest cost of the change. In Gothenburg and Norrköping, and in two Stockholm suburbs, tram networks continued to operate.
The background to this article can be found here : http://todaysdate.com
In sending the original EU Directive, Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc cited previous success when Sweden changed from left to right traffic.
No stranger to controversy, the plan had been originally mooted in 2005 by a previous Commissioner.
Commissioner Barrot was approved by the European Parliament in 2004 and made a Vice-President in the Barroso Commission. However shortly after he began work, UKIP MEP Nigel Farage revealed Barrot had previously been convicted of fraud in 2000. French President Jacques Chirac had granted him presidential amnesty. A fact the Commissioner did not disclose during his hearing to the Parliament. Despite calls from some MEPs for him to be suspended he remained in office.
A memo uncovered in the current administration from the President Jean-Claude Juncker to Bulc and copied to UK Secretary of State for Transport Patrick McCoughlin states that this time, the UK Government must complete a full evaluation and without National Opt Out
In a written reply the Rt Hon Patrick McCoughlin MP refused to confirm or deny the existence of the draft EU plan, merely commenting that "it would not be appropriate to comment on any prospective EU directive during the current UK referendum period". Pushed further, McCoughlin did confirm that he in fact has good experience driving on the right as he is an owner of a left hand drive Citroen at his holiday home in France
In 1967, 3 days of chaos ensued in the changeover period. A non-binding referendum on the introduction of right hand traffic was held in Sweden on 16 October 1955.
The voter turnout was 53.2%, and the suggestion failed by 15.5% against 82.9%.[1] However, eight years later, in 1963, the Riksdag approved the change. The traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right on 3 September 1967
Dagen H (H day), today mostly called "Högertrafikomläggningen" ("The right-hand traffic diversion"), was the day, 3 September 1967, on which traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right. The "H" stands for "Högertrafik", the Swedish word for "right traffic".
Trams in central Stockholm, in Helsingborg and most lines in Malmö were withdrawn and replaced by buses, and over one thousand new buses were purchased with doors on the right-hand side. Some 8,000 older buses were retrofitted to provide doors on both sides, while Gothenburg exported its RHD buses to Pakistan and Kenya. The modification of buses, paid by the state, was the largest cost of the change. In Gothenburg and Norrköping, and in two Stockholm suburbs, tram networks continued to operate.
The background to this article can be found here : http://todaysdate.com
