This is what happened:
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.
And this is how Dvorak starts a rant on the Digital TV conversion (coming Feb 17, 2009):
BERKELEY,
Calif. (MarketWatch) — There is a story about how Sweden changed from
driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right side back in
1967. The Swedes, being orderly, decided to let the trucks and buses
switch to the right side of the road for the first week of the
transition, and then cars switched on the second week.
Is there a story about Sweden changing the way he says? I don’t know, I never heard of it. But it sort of defeats the purpose of his rant to start off with a lie. If it is supposed to be a joke then it doesn’t seem appropriate since the digital TV cut over is being done in one fell swoop. Of course it might defeat the purpose of his rant if he mentioned that the Swedish car accident rate reached a low point at the time of the cut over.