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In neighboring Finland, teens are allowed to drive ATVs on public roads. Both are bizarre and unsafe solutions to the problem that the Nordics have a driving a
by pembrook 5y ago
In neighboring Finland, teens are allowed to drive ATVs on public roads.
Both are bizarre and unsafe solutions to the problem that the Nordics have a driving age of 18, and yet, people under 18 who live outside the city still need to go places.
Nordic politicians in the cities pleasure themselves to the thought of a world without cars (cars and gasoline are taxed into oblivion), while ignoring the reality that the sparsely populated nordics lack the density necessary for good public transportation outside of the central districts of the biggest cities.
So if you’re a young person who does sports or has an after-school job, you’re out of luck if you don’t have well-off parents with a flat in city.
Hence, this weird outcome.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Aeolun 5y ago> So if you’re a young person who does sports or has an after-school job, you’re out of luck if you don’t have well-off parents with a flat in city. I come from a town of about 30k, and I’ve never once felt the need to go anywhere outside of town for any of those things. Given the total number of sports or work locations available, I think that’ll hold true until around the 5k people mark. As far as I can see it’s not really related to being well-off or not. More related to expectations.
- waspight 5y agoI think the issue is more for all those kids living 10km outside that 30k town.
- detaro 5y ago> I think that’ll hold true until around the 5k people mark. The towns that are "important regional centers" in Northern Scandinavia are often smaller than that.
- Aeolun 5y agoI think the problem is that these are only ‘regional centers’ by virtue of there being absolutely nothing else around. I don’t think it invalidates the point that you can’t expect to find all amenities if you live in a community that cannot support them. I’d be willing to bet that 95% of people lives in more populated places, and 90% of the remaining 5% lives so out of the way by choice (e.g. if they _wanted_ to move closer to a more populated place it wouldn’t be an undue financial burden).
- Ma8ee 5y agoLike what? What town would you classify as an important regional centre that has less than 5000 inhabitants?
- Alan_Dillman 5y agoThe De Smet, South Dakota example is a good one. For a more northerly North American example, High Level Alberta, Canada has a population of 3100 and a service population of 20k. First settlers in 1947, it was incorporated in 1965. There is a paved airstrip long enough for a 747, and a hospital. It would be the sleepiest of little villages in southern Europe and/or the USA, and would have a service area not much bigger than its population. The further north you go, the more towns have and require outsized services.
- Ma8ee 5y agoBut none of them are in Scandinavia.
- CRConrad 5y agoSveg?
- 5y ago
- user-the-name 5y ago30k is a decent-sized city in Finland. There are only 22 cities of that size in the entire country. The place I grew up was around 1k.
- reaperducer 5y agoI come from a town of about 30k Even in America, 30K is not a small town. I've lived in and visited probably a hundred places with populations in the hundreds or low thousands. There are counties in America bigger than New Jersey with less than a thousand people.
- Gravityloss 5y agoThere are moped cars that are expensive, unreliable and quite unsafe. There was the initiative to install a speed limiter to regular cars to turn them into "light cars" for kids but that didn't pass for some reason. EU regulations? How is it possible in Sweden? Countryside can be really sparse, with current amount of people a kid's nearest friend might live 5 km away. Cars make so much sense there. Lots of people learn to drive really young with a "peltoauto", a field car. That's legal as it's on private property.
- CRConrad 5y agoIt's possible in Sweden because these "aren't cars, they're tractors". They're required to be modified so they can't go faster than 30 km/h [~18 mph] (or is it 50 km/h [30 mph] nowadays, I can't remember). It's a remnant of wartime legislation, when farmers had a genuine need to be able to use modified old cars for field work, because real tractors weren't available. In return for the lighter taxation on farm equipment, they were glad to accept the requirement; probably had to gear them down anyway, to be able to pull a plow etc. So they're legally registered as tractors, not cars. The moniker "EPAtraktor" has nothing to do with the US Environmental Protection Agency; it's an originally derogatory reference to Enhets(P)ris(A)ktiebolaget, a long-defunct low-price retail chain. So, ~ "Dollar Store tractor". (Or "Alepatraktori"?)
- dncornholio 5y ago5km is more of a bike ride length than a car ride length, so to me cars still don't make sense
- kybernetyk 5y agolet me guess: you live somewhere where winter is 10C with occasional rain? nordic winters are brutal - riding a bike in winter is suicidal
- dncornholio 5y agoI have cycled 12km everyday to school when I was young, but it was on flat roads. In winter it was sometimes -5 to -15 and around those temps, sometimes I would fetch a ride, because I agree, in winter it can be harsh, but other then that, it was biking every day. Rain is even worse than snow by the way. Wind is also killing. But if it was a snowy day with not much wind, cycling is actually fun.
- mongol 5y agoBut what about mopeds and bicycles? And motorcycles?
- kybernetyk 5y agoall nice in summer. in winter though?
- mongol 5y agoProbably not as "nice". But the below video makes a strong case that it is quite possible
- malermeister 5y agoThey're fine if you have the right infrastructure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU
- k8sToGo 5y agoThe general "city dweller" politian vs. people living on the land seems to be an issue in many countries.
- koheripbal 5y agoThis is one of the reasons the US has a senate that over represents rural populations.
- germinalphrase 5y agoWhich has its own problems, of course.
- rjbwork 5y agoNot really. It's just an effect of it. The explicitly stated purpose is to represent the states, not the people, as the original conception of the US was more like the EU than, say, Switzerland.
- sulam 5y agoIt’s funny you use Switzerland as your example, which has the Cantons. To an outside observer they are a first order approximation of US states. They even have citizenship!
- rjbwork 5y agoHah. That is fair. It admittedly was a poorly thought out comparison.
- scott_s 5y agoThe Articles of Confederation were more like the EU, yes. The current US government as established by the US Constitution was definitely not, as it establishes a strong, central federal government with ultimate authority. The makeup of the senate, where each state no matter the size, has two senators was part of a bargain between the big and small states.
- belorn 5y agoI think the reason we see more EPA tractors is that parents choose to pay for an EPA tractor rather than spend the time to drive their kids to sports/after-school jobs and then spend the time again to pick them up. It might also be related to the fact that both parents are more likely to be working today than in the past, thus less time available for driving the kids around. In addition, the public transportation system has been steadily declining in the last 30 years. If I remember right, they even removed laws some time in the early 2000s that required public bus service in remote areas. I also recall that it wasn't that uncommon for lines to be usually empty or with just a handful of passengers, but this was part of the costs of having an available public mass transportation system. They also combined the then national postal service with bus service so that those mostly empty buses provided a secondary service of transporting mail.
- CRConrad 5y ago> It might also be related to the fact that both parents are more likely to be working today than in the past, thus less time available for driving the kids around. I don't think so: Back in the days when Mum was more likely to be a housewife, families were also much more likely to possess only one car, rather than two. And that one car was parked outside Dad's job during the workday, so Mum couldn't drive the kids anywhere unless Dad was around to do it himself anyway.
- belorn 5y agoI can see the argument for that, but having grown up in the rural areas of Sweden, almost everyone had two cars. Usually one half-decent and a second much less so. This also don't account for tractors. A crappy car that cost around or less than $1000, standing there for the primary reason that two adults with children has an occasional use for a secondary car.
- CRConrad 5y agoYou must have grown up a good while after I did, or in a more prosperous area. (Södra Dalarna, 1970-/tidigt 80-tal.)