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.
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.
I've seen some extreme builds way past 500hp too, but those tend to be more show car type builds.
You can actually quite reliably get 450-500hp out of a 2.3 redblock without even spending that much money, redblocks are notorious in tuning communities for this, almost like the 2JZ of Sweden
240kmph is where the gearing ends on a 740 iirc. The biggest engine is a 2.3l turbo that makes 170 hp stock. however, very little work goes into getting it to 300hp. Upgraded turbo, clutch, injectors and an off the shelf chip tune that you simply slot in. Past 300hp and you're looking at beefier rods and most definitely transmission upgrade or a non existent third gear.
I find this hard to believe for a different reason. Your average car becomes quite hard to control at 160kph ish (barring a completely straight stretch of road). I cannot see a 15 year old surviving any instance of going over 250kph, much less something described as ‘escaping from the police’.
I had an old 240 with the naturally aspirated B230. Going 160 kph was not really a big issue, of course not in a tight corner, but OK on regular open roads in Sweden. But 250 kph is pushing the limits for sure.
And I think you're actually agreeing with GP here, since the outcome of those attempted escapes are typically fatal accidents rather than teen escaping.
All else being equal (initial engineering and handling), an older car has a lot more wear and play in the suspension components. If you haven't spent much time under a car, there's a surprising amount of rubber there in the form of bushings.
Over time, the rubber loses its resilience, and doesn't keep things located as they should be for best handling.
Metal on metal pivots wear as well, springs get less springy, dampers degrade in damping ability, etc.
You're unlikely to notice at regular speeds, apart from getting in a new car and the handling feeling sharper. I presume at high speed and under the sorts of maneuvers one might try as a teenager doing teenager things, the results could vary.
For sure a friend of mine had a very old EPA, it would be about 70 years today if it still exists. It could not go faster than 50kph because the handling combined with imbalance in something almost shook it off the road while going "straight".
Mostly because fat sidewalls and suspension tuning that prioritized comfort over having a lap time .04sec less than whatever other mom-mobile the Consumer Reports journalist is comparing yours to.
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.
Especially since those are the least experienced drivers. I wonder how 18-21 drivers look in countries with a higher age.
Though one way to look at it is that a teen driver today is just as safe/dangerous as an average driver 20 years ago, much safer than an average driver 30 years ago, and over twice as safe as an average driver 40 years ago. At least as far as fatalities go.
In the U.S., 18–21 year olds cannot legally drink, either: the federal government withholds highway funds from any state which has a drinking age less than 21, so they all raised their drinking ages.
Car safety ratings in the USA do not test for safety of people outside of the car. Otherwise the vast majority of modern pickups and SUVs would not pass those tests, primarily due to the increased hood heights. See NHTSA[0] for info.
Andrew Gounardes, a NYS senator, attempted to push through a bill that would require additional ‘pedestrian safety’ ratings be posted for vehicles for sale in the state[1]. But otherwise, I don’t know any other state that has any safety ratings for people outside of the vehicles in the US
I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Pedestrian injuries and fatalities in the USA are up higher than they were since the 90s[0]. Just because it’s now safer to be a driver or occupant in a car doesn’t mean everyone is safer as a result.
Feel free to cite some sources and specify what you mean by a small fraction... The United states is large and I can point to several areas where pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities are not a small fraction. They tend to be where people are allowed to walk and bike and not just areas where it's only legal or feasible to drive.
> The average crash kills more occupants than pedestrians
In the United States, that is by design. Besides a handful of primarily coastal cities, you cannot legally or feasibly bike or walk in many places.
> I don't think pedestrians are a reason to say teens shouldn't drive.
I can't find anywhere in this thread that anyone was making a claim that teens shouldn't be able to drive. I believe people were saying we shouldn't allow people who are, statistically speaking, the least capable of driving safely to drive just because they'll be safer if they crash. We shouldn't lower our already extremely low bar for driving standards just because cars are getting bigger and occupants are more likely to survive when they run into a person or a tree.
I'd be perfectly fine with a driving age of 16, as long as the license was limited to vehicles that were under a specific size/weight and our driving standards and tests were greatly improved... With states like Georgia moving ahead with allowing anyone to get a license only with parental approval[0], I have no faith in things getting any better.
> I can't find anywhere in this thread that anyone was making a claim that teens shouldn't be able to drive.
To be clear I meant "under 18" there when I said "teens", because that's the group for which the law differs by country. "teenage minors" is normally what that word means to me.
So specifically, the chain of conversation went like this:
"The issue is that 15 year olds are just that, 15 year old kids. "
"How come 16 year old kids can drive just fine in the US?"
I very much read that as talking about whether teens are a hazard and should be able to drive, deliberately making a comparison to 18+ rules in Sweden.
"They can't. [...] 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."
That continues the same comparison. Then I argued that the total rate of fatalities has been dropping tremendously, so teens these days are less of a hazard than non-teens in decades past.
> I believe people were saying we shouldn't allow people who are, statistically speaking, the least capable of driving safely to drive just because they'll be safer if they crash.
Do you mean Aeolun's comment? It's definitely not what I meant and nobody replied to that comment. So I don't think that's what the conversation was about.
> We shouldn't lower our already extremely low bar for driving standards just because cars are getting bigger and occupants are more likely to survive when they run into a person or a tree.
I'm not sure which age bar you're talking about, but honestly it depends on what you're trying to optimize for. And it's not just occupants surviving more. People in other cars survive more, and if you look back at the same years pedestrians survive more too! In the last few years the pedestrian fraction of vehicle deaths has been 16-17% of 1.15 deaths per hundred million miles, and in the late 70s it was 16-17% of 3.3 deaths per hundred million miles. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
The improvement is less if you go per capita instead of per 100 million miles, but it's still a big improvement.
And yes I'm aware that pedestrian deaths hit a low point and have been rising in the last few years, which is a real problem, but they're still significantly lower than they used to be.
The reporting rate for collisions has gone up which confounds that measurement
Back in the day when costs were lower it was much more common to reconcile things without involving third parties and the legal requirements for max damage in low speed collisions were much more stringent.
The risk of young drivers can be mitigated by more rigorous driving tests, and also driver monitoring of risky drivers (check for patterns of sudden braking, speeding, things like that) by insurers.
But driving in the US is much, much easier than most of Europe.
Like a small city in Calfornia vs. Barcelona was a world of difference. The US has lots of wide, straight roads instead of the nightmare of one-way streets, bus lanes, bike lanes, mopeds and motorcycles etc. in Europe.
As an American currently living in Europe, who has driven in almost every US state and over half the countries in the EU, I don't fully agree. Driving in the US may be easier in the sense of requiring less cognitive load most of the time, but that doesn't translate into lower risk.
The challenges are different, but the probability of a fatal collision is higher in the US, whether per person or per vehicle, than in most EU countries. This doesn't surprise me, and it's not just due to driver training.
Navigating small streets built before cars is very likely to lead to broken side mirrors and scratched paint, but not injury or death. Misusing a bus lane gets you angry honking and gesturing from bus drivers and maybe a ticket from the police, but not injured or killed. A low-speed car-on-moped collision is bad of course, but not as bad as a car on one of those wide, straight American roads running a red light at 60 MPH and crashing into your driver's door at a right angle.
Here's a study with evidence that very wide lanes result in people driving faster and crashing more frequently, a particularly bad combination for safety.
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.
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.
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.
I can talk only about Germany. If there are sidewalks, pedestrians have to use them, also if there are special assigned bike paths, they have to be used too. But where those features are missing, both pedestrians and bicyclists have to use the road - unless it is marked as a motor way. And of course a road can only be marked as a motor way, if there are alternative ways to reach the same destination for the prohibited vehicles.
Slow traffic is absolutely fine, if you can actually identify it as slow traffic.
Just by looking at tractors, cyclists and pedestrians you know they are not going very fast, but a car going 20mph where the limit is 50mph is insanely dangerous because your brain instinctually thinks the car is going about as fast as you are and you have to get quite close to pickup the speed difference.
Here in Denmark you can get a fine for going too slow, it's called being an unnecessary nuisance.
Sorry, a car can go slow for many good reasons not visible to the following traffic (and be it only, that something in front of that car is slow, but you cannot see it). You have to be prepared to that. A car can even be entirely stopped and you should be able to stop without hitting it. Failing to do so is entirely the fault of the following traffic.
It is an entirely different matter, that one isn't allowed to drive unnecessarily slow to not block the following traffic. This is about the traffic flow, not of safety.
In the UK, slow moving vehicles, including tractors, are prohibited on motorways (as are cyclists and pedestrians). They are allowed on other high-speed roads though.
Yes, but those "tractors" would be prohibited as well. The motor ways in Germany are only for vehicles which can drive 60kph or more. I guess the law is similar in Sweden.
These are classified as "agricultural equipment", and as such they of course have access to most of the road network (not major highways) and do not need to go fast. Only "unnecessary obstruction" of traffic is illegal, "obstruction for reasonable cause" is perfectly fine.
The thing that annoys me is that there is not even cursory control that these cars are used in connection with agriculture. It was fine in the past, because it was relatively rare that the regulation was abused. After a recent change in the law that made it cheap/easy to convert regular cars, it has become a menace.
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.
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.
They need to have a front-plate due to being classified as tractors. I would find it reasonable to introduce a new requirement for these vehicles (nb: not all tractors) to need a rear plate to make reporting of incidents easier.
That being said, I would find it likely that the local police would already be aware of these hooligans and where to find them.
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:
That's not quite my point - you asked where would you mount a rear plate on a tractor, to which I answered that there are lots of places. If you're talking about the fact that plates can be obscured by large trailers etc then local laws will dictate that there is a plate on the trailer. I guess plates covered by attachments (ploughs etc) are a slightly different case and may obscure the plate.
In Germany, any motor vehicle which can go faster than 6kph has to carry some kind of license plate, depending on the category of the vehicle. Even eScooters do. For those, and for slow motor bikes, this is issued by the insurance company, as insurance is also mandatory for any motor vehicle, for most others it is issued by the transport authority.
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.
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.
In this case $X is a hastily modified car, which should do 30 KM/H going 100 KM/H, on a 70 KM/H road, driven by a 15 year old, without a driver's license.
Banning doesn't always means "changing the law so that it's outright impossible". Increasing enforcement, and making bending the law impractical is also a form of banning.
In Netherlands, there are scooters allowed to go in bike lanes, and their top speed is limited to 40 KM/H. Some people circumvent this by installing aftermarket clutch sets.
Police have portable dynos which fit into their trunks, and if they find that your scooter can go faster, the fine you and require you to un-modify your scooter and verify it with the police.
This enforcement is strict and is an effective way of "banning" circumvented scooters. I also think the same thing: Increase enforcement, make it impractical to have fast (EP)A-Tractors.
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?
> 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 am likewise often disturbed by kneejerk authoritarian responses especially how they have increased in my lifetime, but not as much when it comes to bad unlicensed drivers, driving is dangerous and not given nearly enough respect and I’m fine with reasonable restrictions on it.
It has nothing to do with it being "annoying" and therefore they want it banned. That's a stupid strawman, as someone that has been here that long you should know better than to discuss like that.
The point is that it's dangerous, potentially lethal, for them and others. That's why they want a ban. Not because of some authoritarian reflex..
Settle down, Ayn Rand. The law in obviously not working as intended due to change of the times (originally it was meant to make it easier for farmers to have an extra vehicle, not for inner city teenagers to cruise around). A revisiting and adjustment is in order.
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.
> 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.
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.
Not 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.
The 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.
It’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!
The reason the US has a Senate with two senators per state, along with a clause that makes it the only section of the constitution that cannot be modified by amendment, is because of the institution of chattel slavery. The slave states had a much smaller voting population than non-slave states and feared that majority rule would eventually remove their ability to keep slaves.
The US constitution precedes the abolition movements by almost a century, slavery was widely accepted by the time the senate was created. This is false and revisionist.
The reality is that the early US was a lot more similar to a federation of independent states at its birth than today. A senate ensured the spirit of a federation would be kept.
Interesting, I want to believe you, but while the Constitution was signed in 1787[1], while the first state that partially abolished slavery (PA) did so a few years earlier, in 1780. Was Pennsylvania not necessarily representative of the majority population? (the next few states abolishing slavery definitely come a few years later)
Thanks. it has true in the title. it definitely is the ultimate source of truth.
Geez guys, just because ONE book says something it doesn't mean you have to believe it as the gospel.
This is BS. The reason we have the senate is because the small states (like NH and NJ) would have never given the constitution their blessing without a say in the legislature.
Here's the 1802 house just to drive the point home. I suggest sorting by the "seats" column
You'll have to do better than linking the entire history of the US Senate if you want to prove that the only reason the US has two senators per state is slavery. I don't doubt that it factored into it at the time, but to tell people in Alabama that the sole reason their vote is valued how the way it is is due to slavery seems incredibly revisionist and ignorant to me.
Consider that in Canada's House of Parliament, we similarly have votes in rural areas overrepresented compared to their urban counterparts. Did that system arise from slavery as well? Of course it didn't, and any Canadian suggesting so would be laughed at.
Close, but no cigar! The Connecticut compromise certainly did include additions about slavery, but in the end the 3/5ths compromise REDUCED the population count for slaves states, decreasing their proportional power. States like Delaware, with small populations were in favor of it.
I 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.
> 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.
I 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.
> 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.
I 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).
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.
There 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.
For the occupant yes. Less so for everyone around.
> that didn't pass for some reason.
It's still a 1500kg block of steel in the hands of people with lesser developed sense of danger (still applies to some adults but that is a different discussion). I get the "people need to go places" but apparently there are no adults who can provide the "service" of driving someone somewhere in the countryside.
The tractor exception was valid in my place as well and was dealt with in a updated law, it's not european afaik simply most countries banning it.
One can put a limit to 1000kg and 50km/h for cars that can be driven from 15-16 years old. The way it is today, at 16 you can fly a plane in most of Europe but you cannot drive a car. Does this make any sense?
> It's still a 1500kg block of steel in the hands of people with lesser developed sense of danger.
In the US people start driving at 16, no? In Austria and Germany you can get an early license with 17.
I got my moped license with 15, but that is probably a hard sell in the north ...
I'd say reduce the age at which people can get a license, make drivers education better, and put a limit on horsepower (same way it is done with motorcycle licenses).
For the US driving at 16 is common especially in the rural states. We could also get our learners permit at 14 so I could drive with my parents in the car. Mostly for me it meant I was the one then doing the 5hr drive to my grandparents place.
Also several of my friends got mopeds at 14 and would drive them around town. Not good for driving on gravel roads but was great for the kids in town.
The farm kids out of town would drive their parents trucks/cars in and around their property starting around 13/14 but that was generally to haul feed and equipment around.
Most US states allow you to get a learners permit at 15.5 years, so that you can get your license when you first turn 16.
There are limitations- an accompanying adult, number of non adult passenger restrictions to limit distractions etc, but the reality is they are still in control of the vehicle.
Out in the country, it is relatively common to drive yourself to school the last year or two. Trying to raise the age to 18 would not go over well at all!
Have you ever taken a 30 minute bike ride over ice-and-snow-covered roads, in -20C temperatures, in the dark, on roads with no street lights or sidewalks (the sun sets at 2:00pm)?
If so, good for you, you rugged badass! But I’m not sure we need to force everybody to do the same.
Most roads are in cleared of snow and ice and are usually well lit. If the street is not well lit and it is covered in ice then yes a teenager should not be driving on it.
I live in suburban Minneapolis. We go weeks with ice covered neighborhood streets, and they are lit only at intersections. Teens learn to drive safely in this environment.
Teens have a higher fatality rate than almost every other driving cohort except 80+ and winter driving conditions are more dangerous than non winter conditions. Teens do not drive safely compared to other age groups in this environment or any other environment.
Fatality rate is more or less irreverent. Pretty much nobody is dying from snow caused mishaps.
Teens die a lot because of gross errors in judgement, drunkenly flying off a cliff on their way to prom with eight people in the car, that kind of stuff. Those kinds of errors mostly tangential to snow and lighting.
By "outside city limits" I believe OP was being general, not specifically talking about large cities.
I live in a rural area. I can think of exactly four street lights that are within a 10-mile radius of my home, and I'm not that far outside town. So yeah, it's pretty dark at night.
Yes, roads around here are mostly cleared of snow and ice, but they're still dirt/gravel roads and the snow is usually pushed off to the shoulders where a bicycle would be riding, and even then, I'm sure you can understand that dirt absorbs water and will then refreeze. It's not a particularly safe place to be riding a bike.
That’s like saying you wouldn’t want a teenager driving in the city vs the suburb, or a freeway vs regular road. These are normal conditions in Sweden.
The grandparent was making out the roads to be incredibly dangerous, that you couldn't possibly ride a bike on them. (Dark, ice covered, no street lamps!). If they are really so dangerous that you can't ride a bike on them then they are too dangerous for a teenager to be driving on.
So, lock the kids up during winter? Where I live, the roads are barely walkable during winter. Public transport is 8km away.
Cars with proper winter tires is far easier to keep steady, than a bike. Especially if windy.
Most teens out here drive tractors to get around. Personally, I'd prefer if Finland went the Swedish route here - an old Volvo with limited speed is still less dangerous than a large tractor.
I grew up in rural Michigan, so similar weather and density to the Nordic countries. There are PLENTY of times when driving is perfectly safe and I wouldn't bike. And I prefer walking/biking to driving most of the time.
> Have you ever taken a 30 minute bike ride over ice-and-snow-covered roads, in -20C temperatures, in the dark, on roads with no street lights or sidewalks (the sun sets at 2:00pm)?
This is exactly the circular problem that everyone in Sweden always points at: the roads are too dangerous and poorly developed for people to cycle on safely - therefore the answer is... more cars driving unsafely on the roads, making them too dangerous for cyclists.
It's a car-culture here. Nothing will ever happen to change that.
Incidentally, anyone romanticizing this as some sort of grassroots, badass rebellious movement should bear in mind that around big cities like Stockholm, parents buy their teenage kids Porsches to be converted to EPA-traktors.[0]
Country roads might be ok for biking, even in winter with the right equipment (clothes, spike tires) but there can be roads with 100 km/h traffic and very narrow shoulders. And the flying sleet and salt etc... Sure, there are quite many bike roads and side roads but not available everywhere. And there are some buses too. But again, since it's so sparse, buses are hard to make work. Taxis do work.
Basically, some parts of the country are really "car country" - and it makes total sense there.
One shouldn't try to shoehorn cars into city centers, I agree about that. This is something else.
Yes, much rather I'd have the teens driving "light cars" which are regular cars at 80 km/h in those conditions than for example flimsy moped cars. Cars have a tremendous amount of safety nowadays, and you get a lot of features for a little bit of money.
We have excellent driver training, including training how to drive in slippery conditions, cars have regulation that they need automatic light leveling, there's yearly checkups for cars etc.
Riding a bike in Finland seems to work just fine, given decent infrastructure. (Where "given decent infrastructure" is a constraint for practically any vehicle).
I 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.
Studded tires and pogies work. My dad commuted regularly to work by bike more than 5km in the winter in Alaska at those temps.
Edit: He lives in Fairbanks, where the fat bike originated. He doesn't ride one since he doesn't like the bounce, but people ride them all winter for fun. I think, like many places, the key is having trails to ride on to improve safety.
He owns a car and regularly chose to commute by bike during the winter. Now that he is retired, he still bikes during the winter purely for fun, as do many other people. That may not be the choice everyone would make, but my point us that it can make sense and bikes are quite feasible during the winter.
Of course, the availability of trails has a huge impact on that choice and it's safety. Sled dogs, snow machines, and now other bike rider make sure that there are lots of trails all over.
That's a routine & enjoyable commute for a lot of people (usually that weather means more packed snow than ice though). Along with doing a lot of recreational outdoor stuff at that weather. You want proper clothing of course.
It'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"?)
My dad and friends used to do 50 mile round trips on bikes back in the day. I hung out and talked to people online. It was also normal to do things like go home with a friend after school to hang out and have a parent pick you up when they got out of work, or hang out at practices after school. So it's doable but it requires a lot more logistics on the part of the adults, which is why everybody's happy when the kids can drive.
I think the "more southern" part of Europe applies here. It's probably about "not being covered in snow for most of the year" which helps cyclists. Yeah, you can use bicycles on snow, but it's not pleasant. Most people hide their bicycles for winter and I'm south from Sweden.
Hmm, I've seen plenty of biking infrastructure un Umea and Lulea (including heated bridges that are used in winter), not to mention people using them even in colder times. It seems not all your countrymen agree with your thinking about winter biking.
Of course not everyone agrees. I see someone on bicycle almost every day, but those are either very dedicated cyclists or those who have no other means to move faster than walking but still need to.
Heated bridges? I've never seen one and roads are not even fully desnowed in my town.
Lots of comments here about how annoying these are. And of course i can also feel the devils horns growing on my forehead when I am behind 2-3 of these taking up the road in 30km/h. (I live next to a highschool with forestry/farming profile, so...)
But then I take a deep breath and think about the perspective of the teenagers here. Often stuck in rural parts of Sweden with little or no public transport. And taking the bicycle or the moped in -10C is not very appealing.
The freedom it brings means everything for them.
That said - in my area (relatively populated) I have not seen them speeding.
I see two types of comments on this thread. Either they hate it and want them banned or comments like your own saying that they have no other option. I think the solution would be for your government to allow younger folks to drive in the countryside.
These are controversial cars for sure and the comments here are pretty telling: they are by one comment too slow (when driven legaly), and by another too fast for safety (when driven illegaly).
I have helped a friends son with such a coversion this year: It doesn't take that much really. Just an electronic box that kills the spark coils when the box senses that the drive axel is spinning too fast, and a big plywood box to make the back seat unusable.
Electronic conversions where made simpler to put them more in line with the EU moped car class (except those can do 20 km more per hour).
I think one recent trend is that these cars are not primarily a "out in the sticks"-thing any more: Most new conversions are done by (small) town kids, who drive around in the town, not out on the dirt roads.
'It’s easy to understand why there aren’t any A tractors in Stockholm, where the public transportation system is extensive and reliable. However, in rural towns they’re a common part of the automotive landscape.'
Actually, they are getting very common in Stockholm and the type of base car is more often a newer more expensive model, like BMW 5 series, Porsche Cayenne, Nissan Navarra etc.
I have even seen an example of a Dodge RAM 1500 EPA.
That Dodge doesn't appear to fit the criteria though - the dual cab is in place which means it seats more than two people and the rear bulkhead is further back than the law allows.
That's significantly less weird than the German workaround. In Germany you are allowed to drive a car with a moped license if that car is a specific type of three wheeler for as long as it has less than 20 HP. So there are people that are building three wheelers out of a Fiat 500. You can drive up to 90km/h with that.
Where I lived until some months ago they usually drive way faster than I do. One memory that stands out is being passed by one driving about 80km/h on a narrow 30km/h road filled with speed bumps, narrowings amd other obstacles. It was a miracle the thing staid on the road.
It was just where all the kids cross the road to school. That was when I changed my mind from "youthful fun" to "ban them".
More than half of all dangerous situation I have been in concerning cars have involved EPA-traktors.
Now whenever one is coming I either walk in the ditch on the side of the road or jump to the other aide of it.
Driving from where I lived to the closest school I was usually passed by 2-5 EPA-traktors, despite driving 80km/h.
Sounds like it conveniently makes the worst drivers easily identifiable. Sounds good to me! I doubt making them drive something else would magically make them safer.
At least a driver with a license have been officially trained with security in mind.
Those EPA drivers are, actually, teenagers trained by their teenagers friends. It’s normal for teenagers to underestimate risks and dangers.
That’s basically why a licence is needed to drive : not to explain you how to control a car (that’s a rather simple skill) but how to act on the shared road.
Do they not have a license because they'd rather self-learn, or do they not have a license because they don't meet the required age?
While I don't doubt that some people would not give a shit and self-learn and drive the A-tractors without a license anyway, at least lowering the age for a license would mean that those who want to be safer can get it.
You could even attach restrictions to said license that incentivise safer driving over time - a teenage license can be obtained at 15 but comes with some restrictions that get lifted over time (unless caught breaking the rules) and inherently "converts" to a full license by the time you're 18 assuming you haven't lost it beforehand due to unsafe driving.
How about requiring them to get a license to drive a car first? It's not going to fix everything, but at least requiring people to learn about road rules and take an exam before they are allowed to drive would be something that might help a little bit?
The Netherlands had a similar thing for a while. From age 16, teens can get a moped license. Within the moped class there are tiny 4 wheeled vehicles. Mostly a continued development of tiny cars used by people with disabilities.
Then somebody figured out that some real cars can have their software 'downgraded' to limit the car to 45 km/h, and it can be classified as a moped.
I forgot what was done to get rid if this loophole.
It was a loophole that allowed any car that met a specific top speed to be classified as an agricultural vehicle. I believe this hole was closed when some kids succeeded in registering a Mercedes ML as a tractor.
That wouldn't apply as you need a moped license for those back when they were allowed and a tractor license now. There is no "only this type" revocation in the law in the Netherlands and you lose all your licenses. And yes that means driving drunk in your car on Sunday as a truck driver can cost you your job.
There's long time EU wide classification for the "light quadricycles" (L6e/L7e) but in some countries the age limits are same as for normal cars. Eg in Germany you can get a license for some of these at 16.
So a teenager is allowed to drive a vehicle that weighs over a ton 30km/h without a drivers license, but their e-bike assist will max out at 25km/h because it would be otherwise unsafe. Regulations are nonsensical.
Those photos just make me wish there were still smaller car-like pickups being produced for the US market. I hardly ever need to transport more than myself and one passenger. I typically just use my vehicle to drive to and from work, to the store, and around the city. But on many occasions, I would really love to be able to fit a full sheet of plywood or drywall without having to cut it down at the hardware store first.
I make do with my hatchback and rarely rent or borrow a truck, but there really isn't a good option for "small, economical, but can carry long/wide items once every month or two". At least nothing that's currently produced (old S-10's and Rangers, etc. are hard to find and cost way more than they would as "commodity" cars).
They exist here in the US but they aren't very popular. I think it's mainly a parking problem. Most urban and suburban zoning codes prohibit parking them outside. In urban areas with street parking you can't park them on the street.
It's very rare to see a vehicle here that isn't a pickup to have a towing hitch installed.
Interesting. The closest we have to that is largest hardware store around here will allow you to rent a truck for $20 for an hour with a $150 deposit. There's no trailer option.
There are a couple companies here that rent trucks/trailers and focus their marketing towards people that are moving. Their base rates for the trucks and trailers are the same and start in the same $20 ballpark. The trucks are a little more expensive for long moves as they have a per-mile surcharge if you exceed a certain distance with them. Most people still opt for the trucks over the trailers with the rarity of cars with tow hitches installed.
Those are utes! You don't see them about as much as you used to, but they've been big in Australia for decades. Not home-built, and regulated like other cars, but that's what they look like!
(They are also popular with young people, and have a bad rep for causing accidents. This is more because they are usually massively overpowered, and all the weight is on the front.)
They differ in that utes have a pretty large load bed, whereas these are -- or at least were, for the EPA -- allowed to have a maximum of one square meter. (Might be slightly larger for the A?)
I assume the reasoning was, so farmers don't try to get the more favourable tax rate for a tractor applied to something they actually use as a pickup truck. Real tractors don't have big load beds either.
I think this just shows how regulation makes people inventive =)
I cry a little bite about the mercs and bmws though, some would have had much more value in restauration than conversion to a mobility scootesr :/
They should have just limited the ECU of the more modern cars and once you turn 18 they remove the limits. In germany we do that do the heavy bikes for young people
You probably can't understand this video[1] but just look at it, it's a 14 year old kid being interviewed about his mechanic interest out on his family's farm.
My favourite aspect of this is that the name EPA is coming from a long-since closed chain of stores selling low-quality products, and the teenagers driving these vehicles have for sure never seen one.
These were definitely a thing among my countryside friends. I grow up on the edge of a Swedish city. They always seemed be undergoing some repair or modification. At least upgrading the sound if nothing more daring. Since they only make sense to drive from 15 to 17, they change owners frequently and are often 20+ years old in the first place.
Czechia allows teenagers with moped driving license to drive 50ccm mopeds or small 2-seat cars limited to 45 km/h (similar to Smart but even smaller), with no big problems. Age is not an issue, the missing training/license is.
Error in the article: the EPA legislation was superseded by the A around 1980, not in the sixties. Could well be that their "1963" is just a typo for 1983.
#/media/File:Baset_trailer.jpg){kind=link}
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.