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There has been quite a few accidents that have gotten media attention lately. Sweden is not really used to teens killing themselves or others in traffic (overal

by bjoli 5y ago

There has been quite a few accidents that have gotten media attention lately. Sweden is not really used to teens killing themselves or others in traffic (overall we have something like 2.3 traffic deaths/100.000 inhabitants), so there is an ongoing investigation regarding rules and security regulations regarding (EP)A-traktors. Personally I hope they get banned, because I am pretty tired of being passed on my morning commute by often multiple (EP)A-traktors going 100km/h on a 70 km/h road, driven by someone without a driver's licence. That is the reality. Not the romaticism in the article.

caslon 5y ago
It seems pretty right? I mean, what's next? Requiring a license to make toast in your own toaster?
snypher 5y ago
Rather than a new law, why isn't the existing law re speed limiters enforced?
- bjoli 5y ago
  Up until very recently EPA-traktors were exempt from the yearly mandatory vehicle inspections of cars. This meant all controls were "in the field" where discovering the various changes can be hard. It has been somewhat of a sport to find new sneaky ways to make the cars go fast and/or quickly lock and unlock the car with a hidden lever. And most of the cars are in rural areas with little police presence. Outside of urban areas sweden is very sparsely populated. My parents live out in bum-fudge nowhere with something like 2 people per square km. Up there every other 15 year old has an EPA-traktor.
3np 5y ago
Being able to drive those >30km/h is already illegal. IME enforcement of that that is lax. Still, I hope you took down the plate number(s) and reported it. The case you’re talking about is a very very small minority and that driver would probably drive a car illegally if they didn’t have access to an (EP)A. The vast majority of vehicles in this class is unable to go 100km/h.
- kfarr 5y ago
  Many of the photos from the article show vehicles with no license plate.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    A few photos show vehicles with no license plate in the rear. You'll notice those vehicles aren't shown from the front, so you don't see the plate they most probably have there -- since that, unlike having one at the rear, is required by law.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Judging by the article's pictures most of them don't have a rear plate at all so it's probably not required. That would make reporting it a lot more difficult.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    They aren't required on the rear indeed, because they're essentially tractors. Which is why you're not allowed rear seats for example. Where would you stick the license plate on a tractor?
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Here all the tractors have their rear license plates mounted on the top of the cab :)
    - glitchcrab 5y ago
      Real tractors are big vehicles - it's not hard to find somewhere to mount a small plate. All road-going tractors in the UK will have both front and rear plates - you can see it in this photo just below the cab: https://www.lantra.co.uk/sites/default/files/course_images/tractor-in-field.jpg https://www.lantra.co.uk/sites/default/files/course_images/t...
      - 5y ago
seany 5y ago
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  The point isn't just that it's annoying, it's that it's dangerous. That's pretty obvious from their comment: > Personally I hope they get banned, because I am pretty tired of being passed on my morning commute by often multiple (EP)A-traktors going 100km/h on a 70 km/h road, driven by someone without a driver's licence. Does that sound at all safe to you? Why should someone have the freedom to endanger others on public roads?
  - jareklupinski 5y ago
    knee-jerk? > Personally I hope they get banned, because I am pretty tired of being passed on my morning commute by often multiple horseless carriages going 30km/h on a 10 km/h horse-only road, driven by someone without a horse permit. sounds like progress also sounds like something I wouldnt want my own kids doing / sharing the public road with i dont know
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    They don’t have that freedom. They have to have a max speed of 20 mph.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      Maybe they don’t on paper, but it sounds like they do in practice.
      - selectodude 5y ago
        Then enforcement of the laws seems to be a better action than banning things outright.
        recursive 5y ago
vodkapump 5y ago
I don't live in Sweden, but in Northern Norway and go to Umeå, Skellefteå, Luleå etc a lot, and I have to agree that these are actually an absolute menace. I am personally a car person and absolutely love the idea of an EPA in general but I've seen both crashes from them going dangerously slow (30kph on E4an, a motorway where everyone does 120-150kph) and also 250-300kph trying to outrun the police because it's a 15 year old that panics when they see the police because they were going slightly over 30kph, and conclude that flooring their overtuned Volvo 740 and escaping the police is the only thing they can try to not get a license suspension when they become 18.
- hrnnnnnn 5y ago
  In the UK I'm pretty sure you'd get pulled over by the police for doing 30kph on the motorway, it's reckless driving and you're putting yourself and others in danger.
  - vodkapump 5y ago
    It is definitely not legal, but does happen very occasionally. The issue is that 15 year olds are just that, 15 year old kids.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      How come 16 year old kids can drive just fine in the US?
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        They can't. Teens have a far higher rate of crashing than any other age group with only over 80 even coming close. From the NSC >Sixteen- to 19-year-olds represent 3.9% of licensed drivers, but account for 8.6% of drivers in all crashes and 6.0% of drivers in fatal crashes. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-driver/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-dr...
zppln 5y ago
Personally I hope they get banned, but for the opposite reason. Them only being able to do 30 km/h leads to insane queues on some 70 km/h roads I regularly use, with dangerous overtaking as a result.
- hrnnnnnn 5y ago
  I've run into these things twice, one of those times someone behind me tried to overtake nearly causing a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. It is absolutely baffling to me that these things are allowed on roads where they can only manage less than half the speed limit.
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    I wonder where people get the illusion that "roads" are reserved for cars which can go at arbitrary high speeds. Roads are for any kind of vehicles, many of those cannot go very fast. Start with real tractors, which used to go no faster than 25 kph, some of them now go 40 or 50, but that's it. A driver of a car has to be able to safely cope with slow traffic. Of course there are plenty more, like bicyclists, horse carriots and on the country side often even pedestrians. I can understand that slow traffic can be quite annoying, but calling it a safety hazard puts the blame on the wrong party.
    - breakingcups 5y ago
      It's similar to how "Jaywalking" became a thing in the U.S. Shift blame to the pedestrians instead of the cars.
      - Zak 5y ago
        There are rules for all road users in most countries. Rules for pedestrians govern where and when they may cross roads, and usually prohibit walking in lanes designated for faster moving vehicles. Busier or faster streets tend to have rules that impose more separation between pedestrians, cyclists, and cars, and blame for a collision usually falls on whoever violates them. This is partly for safety of course, but it is also intended to support throughput. People and goods do not flow easily in cities where trucks move at walking speeds.
polote 5y ago
Do you have stats showing that people younger than 18 years old have more accidents than older people ? Because the fact that some young people exceed the speed limit doesnt show anything neither is excludes the fact that some older people too exceed the speed limit.
- Veen 5y ago
  > In the United States, the fatal crash rate per mile driven for 16-19 year-olds is nearly 3 times the rate for drivers ages 20 and over. Risk is highest at ages 16-17. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teena...
  - bjoli 5y ago
    And those 16-19 year olds all have a drivers licence.

by bjoli 5y ago

caslon 5y ago

It seems pretty right? I mean, what's next? Requiring a license to make toast in your own toaster?

snypher 5y ago

Rather than a new law, why isn't the existing law re speed limiters enforced?

bjoli 5y ago
Up until very recently EPA-traktors were exempt from the yearly mandatory vehicle inspections of cars. This meant all controls were "in the field" where discovering the various changes can be hard. It has been somewhat of a sport to find new sneaky ways to make the cars go fast and/or quickly lock and unlock the car with a hidden lever. And most of the cars are in rural areas with little police presence. Outside of urban areas sweden is very sparsely populated. My parents live out in bum-fudge nowhere with something like 2 people per square km. Up there every other 15 year old has an EPA-traktor.

3np 5y ago

Being able to drive those >30km/h is already illegal. IME enforcement of that that is lax. Still, I hope you took down the plate number(s) and reported it. The case you’re talking about is a very very small minority and that driver would probably drive a car illegally if they didn’t have access to an (EP)A. The vast majority of vehicles in this class is unable to go 100km/h.

kfarr 5y ago
Many of the photos from the article show vehicles with no license plate.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  A few photos show vehicles with no license plate in the rear. You'll notice those vehicles aren't shown from the front, so you don't see the plate they most probably have there -- since that, unlike having one at the rear, is required by law.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Judging by the article's pictures most of them don't have a rear plate at all so it's probably not required. That would make reporting it a lot more difficult.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  They aren't required on the rear indeed, because they're essentially tractors. Which is why you're not allowed rear seats for example. Where would you stick the license plate on a tractor?
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Here all the tractors have their rear license plates mounted on the top of the cab :)
  - glitchcrab 5y ago
    Real tractors are big vehicles - it's not hard to find somewhere to mount a small plate. All road-going tractors in the UK will have both front and rear plates - you can see it in this photo just below the cab: https://www.lantra.co.uk/sites/default/files/course_images/tractor-in-field.jpg https://www.lantra.co.uk/sites/default/files/course_images/t...
    - 5y ago

seany 5y ago

TulliusCicero 5y ago
The point isn't just that it's annoying, it's that it's dangerous. That's pretty obvious from their comment: > Personally I hope they get banned, because I am pretty tired of being passed on my morning commute by often multiple (EP)A-traktors going 100km/h on a 70 km/h road, driven by someone without a driver's licence. Does that sound at all safe to you? Why should someone have the freedom to endanger others on public roads?
- jareklupinski 5y ago
  knee-jerk? > Personally I hope they get banned, because I am pretty tired of being passed on my morning commute by often multiple horseless carriages going 30km/h on a 10 km/h horse-only road, driven by someone without a horse permit. sounds like progress also sounds like something I wouldnt want my own kids doing / sharing the public road with i dont know
- renewiltord 5y ago
  They don’t have that freedom. They have to have a max speed of 20 mph.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Maybe they don’t on paper, but it sounds like they do in practice.
    - selectodude 5y ago
      Then enforcement of the laws seems to be a better action than banning things outright.
      - recursive 5y ago

vodkapump 5y ago

I don't live in Sweden, but in Northern Norway and go to Umeå, Skellefteå, Luleå etc a lot, and I have to agree that these are actually an absolute menace. I am personally a car person and absolutely love the idea of an EPA in general but I've seen both crashes from them going dangerously slow (30kph on E4an, a motorway where everyone does 120-150kph) and also 250-300kph trying to outrun the police because it's a 15 year old that panics when they see the police because they were going slightly over 30kph, and conclude that flooring their overtuned Volvo 740 and escaping the police is the only thing they can try to not get a license suspension when they become 18.

hrnnnnnn 5y ago
In the UK I'm pretty sure you'd get pulled over by the police for doing 30kph on the motorway, it's reckless driving and you're putting yourself and others in danger.
- vodkapump 5y ago
  It is definitely not legal, but does happen very occasionally. The issue is that 15 year olds are just that, 15 year old kids.
  - emteycz 5y ago
    How come 16 year old kids can drive just fine in the US?
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      They can't. Teens have a far higher rate of crashing than any other age group with only over 80 even coming close. From the NSC >Sixteen- to 19-year-olds represent 3.9% of licensed drivers, but account for 8.6% of drivers in all crashes and 6.0% of drivers in fatal crashes. https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-driver/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-dr...

zppln 5y ago

Personally I hope they get banned, but for the opposite reason. Them only being able to do 30 km/h leads to insane queues on some 70 km/h roads I regularly use, with dangerous overtaking as a result.

hrnnnnnn 5y ago
I've run into these things twice, one of those times someone behind me tried to overtake nearly causing a head-on collision with oncoming traffic. It is absolutely baffling to me that these things are allowed on roads where they can only manage less than half the speed limit.
- _ph_ 5y ago
  I wonder where people get the illusion that "roads" are reserved for cars which can go at arbitrary high speeds. Roads are for any kind of vehicles, many of those cannot go very fast. Start with real tractors, which used to go no faster than 25 kph, some of them now go 40 or 50, but that's it. A driver of a car has to be able to safely cope with slow traffic. Of course there are plenty more, like bicyclists, horse carriots and on the country side often even pedestrians. I can understand that slow traffic can be quite annoying, but calling it a safety hazard puts the blame on the wrong party.
  - breakingcups 5y ago
    It's similar to how "Jaywalking" became a thing in the U.S. Shift blame to the pedestrians instead of the cars.
    - Zak 5y ago
      There are rules for all road users in most countries. Rules for pedestrians govern where and when they may cross roads, and usually prohibit walking in lanes designated for faster moving vehicles. Busier or faster streets tend to have rules that impose more separation between pedestrians, cyclists, and cars, and blame for a collision usually falls on whoever violates them. This is partly for safety of course, but it is also intended to support throughput. People and goods do not flow easily in cities where trucks move at walking speeds.

polote 5y ago

Do you have stats showing that people younger than 18 years old have more accidents than older people ? Because the fact that some young people exceed the speed limit doesnt show anything neither is excludes the fact that some older people too exceed the speed limit.

Veen 5y ago
> In the United States, the fatal crash rate per mile driven for 16-19 year-olds is nearly 3 times the rate for drivers ages 20 and over. Risk is highest at ages 16-17. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teenagers https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/teena...
- bjoli 5y ago
  And those 16-19 year olds all have a drivers licence.