pyry wrote:you guys dont know how to drive. its something like 3-7 per thousand in finland. under 150 people die anually in traffic, out of 5.2 million
pyry, this does not help a bit. Even if I am aware that Finland has made an excellent work in recent years about
road safety, Finland drivers (sorry to say it like that, but I want to use the strongest possible words)
are as stupid or smart as anybody. Passport does not make you immune to death, my man, even if I want to concede the high cultural level and social responsability of scandinavians. This kind of thinking is what takes you to the rates I mentioned for young drivers.
European Union 2002. Source:
CARE (Community Road Accident Database).
Total deaths in EU, 2002: 38.637
Total seriously injured: 221.656
Total slightly injured: 1'129.395
Fatality rates by country and by billion passenger-km:
The main difference between national accident rates
is the quality of the infrastructure, and, to certain level, your culture, not your nationality. This, and better cars is the force behind the slow decrease in accidents over the years.
The idea that somehow you drive better than anybody is what can
really kill you, or worse, your friends, or worse yet, somebody else's mother, father, daughter or son.
I have personally raised enough broken bodies from wreckages, when I worked for road maintenance, while some stupid driver tumbled around completely drunk, to have some tolerance or words of encourage to "super-drivers".
I apologize to pyry in advance, because such a short and probably innocent observation as the one he gave maybe does not deserve such a strong response on my part. I hope this counts as "reilu meininki".
Car and road engineers have taken more than lightly this heavy social responsability. Some of you know that I like to make lame jokes on almost anything, but I am not smiling right now.