Snow Surprises and Causes Crashes
12 October 2007 in Rant & Root | Comments enabled
Well, well, although the weather forecast has promised snow and minus degrees (in Celsius) for this week since last week, people are still surprised by the new snow. All Finnish news agencies and -papers have reported of multiple fender benders around southern Finland which got some snow and cold weather for today. It is amazing that people can’t seem to learn to adjust their tires and driving style to the weather, no matter what the weather forecast is promising.
But, all is not the average Joe’s fault. Finnish “temporary” tax on cars is ridiculous: it favors buying old, unsafe, CO2 spewing rust buckets with wheels rather than safer, newer, more efficient cars. Somewhat ironic is that the government cannot pre-announce any changes to the car taxation system, because the car sales are expected to plummet to zero and some car sellers may have to close up the shop. In fact, the worst part is that the tax on a car bought is 100%. Yes, you read that right. Buy two cars, get only one car. This is what the law on car taxation says, which even more ironically was supposed to be a temporary law when introduced somewhere around ten years ago.
The tax means people driving around in older cars are virtually risking their lives everytime they go out driving. Car crashes leading to death of the passengers have been increasing, and the police is saying: “Let’s put up more speed cameras!”. Yeah, since surely all the crashes are caused by speeding and not the old safety designs in what is the European Union’s oldest carpool. I even read something more evil: there is a possibility for the police to (in the near future?) measure the time it takes for a car to pass two speed cameras and calculate the time taken between the two points and deduce if the car has been speeding between the two points. So, no more overtaking slower gramps causing traffic havoc cruising too slow and creating miles of lines in their Volvos and Mercedes´ with that system in place?
I wonder if the one death that the slippery roads today caused could have been avoided if the owner had a newer car. (Of course, there is nothing safer than having brand new winter tires under the brand new car either and keeping your distance to the car in front.)
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