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NORTHERN SWEDEN DISPATCHES

ELK

Driving in Sweden: Elk, reindeer, and road rage

Fresh from another near miss with a hulking behemoth of an elk, ex-Londoner Paul Connolly offers up a theory on how the prospect of imminent collisions with wayward wildlife affects the driving habits of Swedes up north.

Driving in Sweden: Elk, reindeer, and road rage

The elk seemed to come from nowhere. One second I was barrelling down the road in my old Volvo on the way to pick up yet more baby items delivered to the local post office; the next this huge, ugly creature (looking remarkably like Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand close up) was hurtling from the bushes to my right and straight into my path.

Both my feet hammered down on the Volvo’s 25-year-old brakes but nothing happened. The elk, of course, just stopped in the road and gazed curiously at the ancient blue car careering towards it. He may have been pondering just how ugly humans are, especially those with eyes and mouths as round as moons.

The elk almost certainly heard the wide-eyed, open-mouthed idiot in the car yelling curses at him through the open window as he somehow managed to guide the car around him, missing the elk’s big, floppy gob by perhaps 20 centimetres. He would have allowed himself a brief elk chortle as the blue car drove along the next 50 metres of the road, half-in and half-out of the roadside ditch, picking up an assortment of vegetation and rubbish as if it were serving a community sentence as punishment for being a crap car.

When I did at last manage to drop anchor, around 100 metres up the road, I got out of the car and looked back to see the elk lying down in the road, looking very relaxed. I may have hollered something insulting in its general direction – I’m pretty sure it had heard it all before.

I’ve driven a lot in my life. I’ve undertaken ten American road trips, covering around 75,000 kilometres, and a similar number of European odysseys. My first ever job was as a driver. I’m by no means a perfect driver (I may be a little heavy on the gas) but I’m not a bad one. The wildlife up here, however, would provide German Formula One race driver Sebastian Vettel with a test of his reflexes. I’ve had four near misses with elk and three with reindeer – each time the margin of error could be measured in centimetres not metres. In all my time driving through 45-odd American states I encountered one suicidal rabbit. Here, the bunnies (giant Arctic hares the size of dogs), are almost queuing up waiting for a car to pass so that they hurl themselves in front of it.

The reckless wildlife up north might explain the drivers. Something has to. Anyone who has spent any time driving in the US will know that many Americans are appalling drivers – they drive as if they’re in a bubble and pay no attention to other drivers, to the point of being dangerous. The northern Swedes aren’t quite as bad (I’ve actually had two of them say ‘thank you’ for letting them out at a junction – show other road users such kindness in the US and you’ll be blithely ignored at best, furiously middle-fingered at worst).

But they do fall into two categories. By far the largest category is the cautious driver. These must be those who have actually hit an elk. They crawl along the country roads, twenty extra headlights ablaze even during full daylight, their heads moving as if they’re watching a tennis match, always on the lookout for a depressed elk or reindeer about to throw itself into their path. But they’re going so slow it’s unlikely a moose would even notice if it was hit.

The other type of driver has either never hit wildlife or hit so many animals he no longer cares. He’s usually the sort that won’t bother to overtake you on a straight road (plenty of those up here), preferring instead to wait for a blind bend, in order to get the juices really flowing. As in the UK, these adrenalin junkies of the tarmac tend to drive a white van. And are almost always on their mobile phones.

Suicidal critters and bad drivers aside, however, northern Sweden is a paradise for motorists. Unlike the UK, if a destination is a one hour drive away it will take one hour to get there (elk permitting). You will not encounter traffic jams (unless you drive through the centre of Sundsvall, Luleå, Umeå, or Skellefteå at rush hour – in these teeming cities you can be delayed by up to five minutes at peak times). And you will never see road rage (far too confrontational for northern Swedes).

Now all someone needs to do is invent an elk radar.

Paul Connolly

Read more from Paul here, including his Northern Dispatch column

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DRIVING

EXPLAINED: When can a child sit in the front seat of a car in Switzerland?

Babies and children must be safely secured in a child’s car seat designed for their weight and age group whenever they travel in a car in Switzerland. We look at the rules around driving with children.

EXPLAINED: When can a child sit in the front seat of a car in Switzerland?

In Switzerland, a simple rule for taking children in motor vehicles has been in place for a good two decades: Every child up to a height of 150 cm or the age of 12 must travel in a suitable child seat.

Its Austrian neighbour has even stricter rules in place. Babies and children in Austria must be correctly secured in a child’s seat up to the age of 14 if they are below 135 cm in height.

The German law takes a more relaxed approach and regulates that children from the age of 12 or those that are taller than 150 cm can ride in the vehicle without a child seat – with the appropriate seat belt, of course.

When can a child sit in the front?

According to the law in Switzerland, once a child has reached a height of 150 cm, they can sit anywhere in the car with or without a child or booster seat.

However, a child needs to reach a minimum height of 150 cm for the safety belts to guarantee their safety in a way that the neck is not constricted while driving in the event of sudden braking or an accident.

In principle, children are allowed to sit on the front passenger seat regardless of their age, however, this is not recommended by experts who argue that children are much safer in the back of the car. Furthermore, if a vehicle is equipped with airbags, rear-facing car seats may only be used if the front airbag on the passenger’s side is deactivated.

A driver at the Stelvio Pass, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Switzerland.

A driver at the Stelvio Pass, Santa Maria Val Müstair, Switzerland. Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash

Can I be fined for my child travelling without an appropriate car seat?

You can and you will. The fine for transporting an unsecured child under the age of 12 is 60 francs, which, given the risk driving without an appropriate child seat poses to your child’s life, is mild. 

But what about public transport?

Though this may seem illogical to some, Switzerland does not have any safety laws dictating that car seats be used on its buses, meaning it is not uncommon to see mothers standing in the aisle of a packed bus with a baby in a sling while struggling to hold on to a pole for stability.

Though politicians did briefly discuss equipping buses with baby and child seats in 2017 to avoid potential risks to minors, nothing came of it. Ultimately, supplying buses with special seats or introducing seat belts proved unrealistic given the number of seats and considering how often people hop on and off a bus – there is a stop almost every 300 metres in Switzerland.

Instead, drivers are now better informed of the dangers posed to minors travelling on their vehicles and parents are advised to leave children in strollers and not load those with heavy shopping bags.

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