The 1955 right-hand traffic referendum
AdvisoryOctober 16, 1955
No received the most votes, 82.9 %. Turnout was 53.2 %.
”Folkomröstning angående högertrafik”Referendum on right-hand traffic
Result
| Option | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 400,061 | 15.5 % |
| No | 2,139,996 | 82.9 % |
| Blank | 41,630 | 1.6 % |
- Turnout
- 53.2 %
- Eligible voters (estimated)
- 4,866,100
- Valid votes
- 2,581,687
- Invalid votes
- 6,043
Shares are calculated on valid votes including blank ballots, as in the official statistics.
The options
- Yes: For introducing right-hand traffic.
- No: For keeping left-hand traffic.
About the referendum
Sweden drove on the left, while its neighbours drove on the right. No received 82.9 percent, but turnout was low. Parliament nevertheless decided in 1963 to switch to right-hand traffic without a new referendum, and the change took place on Dagen H, 3 September 1967.
All Swedish national referendums have been advisory. Parliament is not bound by the outcome.
Only the result for the whole country is shown. County boundaries were different before 1968: the city of Stockholm was a county of its own, and today's Skåne and Västra Götaland were several counties. The counties therefore cannot be shown on today's map.
There is no official figure for the number of eligible voters in 1955. The number is Statistics Sweden's estimate based on the eligible voters in the 1954 municipal elections, and turnout is based on it.
Source: Statistics Sweden, Statistical Yearbook of Sweden 1958, table 450. The figures were transcribed by hand and checked against the table's totals and percentages.