Monday 1 February 2010

winter driving in Finland

As an Aussie one of the hardest things to do in Finland is getting used to Driving on the wrong side of the road. Winter brings new hazzards for the Australian driver, not the least of which is snow and how this makes the road behave. When its been snowing heavily and there is a thick cover of snow on the road you can actually start 'skiing' on your tyres before you know it (if you're going too fast). Sort of like Aquaplaning, only on snow. Then there's visibility ... Things can start out ok:

  P1070068.thumb 

 and quickly transit to stuff like this:

  P1070071.thumb  

where visibility is barely 2 or 3 seconds ahead and stuff comes out of the murk fast ...

  P1070074.thumb 

Somehow people still seem to feel the need to be overtaking. Morons, its one thing to have a death wish, but another to kill others. Now, if you happen to be a bit drowsy or distracted, just as you get used to things flying at you on the wrong side of the road, you can come across something like this:

P1070092 

 which makes you feel like "Shit, am I on the wrong side of the road"

2 comments:

Noons said...

Yikes! This is indeed scary!

Soundimageplus said...

Aren't the Finns supposed to be the best rally drivers in the world?

Your words and pictures probably explain why.

They must get lots of practice.