Tuesday, December 19, 2006

A Swedish highway by nigh

Driving on a Swedish highway is nothing compared to driving on an American (actually it's not really fare to compare - 9 millions vs 300 millions and great public transportation vs non-existent public transportation).

The first time you drive on an American highway you're terrified (well, unless you've taken a little drive on the German Autobahn of course). Cars will pass you everywhere and sometimes you don't even know how many lanes there are (compared to Swedish highways where three lanes is rare...).

And the highways are always busy... Day and night. Not constantly congested like during rush hour but there will always be cars on the highway.

Not like in Stockholm...

This is the major highway in Stockholm (E4) at 1.27 am this morning.

Not too busy...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jo, vägnätet USA v Sverige är som natt och dag.Vi bor i en lugn småstad (eller förort), men det finns inte mångar vägar här som inte är 2-filig. I en småstad. Dessutom finns det inte bara en väg (typ huvudväg) utan massor med vägar som man kan välja. Folk där hemma är fascinerade (eller kanske förskräckta) över fenomenet...
/utvandrar-Anne

Anonymous said...

Remember. You are speaking of California. There are many, many places in the USA where you will not see a car at the time of night you mention. Take for example long stretches between Utah and Nevada. Traffic is relatively light. But don't be terrified on US highways. Be terrified on the highway into Stockholm from Årlanda. Why? Because there is a 'famous' motorcycle driver who drives like a maniac darting in and out of traffic at ridiculously high rates of speed while filming himself and then putting it up on the Internet. I wish I could remember the character's site online. He's famous here for it though.

JaCal said...

Well, the picture is from downtown Stockholm. Not the E4 between Gävle and Söderhamn... ;-) The main difference in empty highways is that you might find an emtpy highway with 7 lanes here and only 2 in Sweden. I've driven between Chicago and New Orleans once - it's scary to drive on your own with three lanes on each side... Around here however, where it's pretty populated I have yet to drive alone any time of the day.

Never heard of the motorcycle driver - but I watch out for him the next time I'm there! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Sweden is a small town by global standards in every single aspect.
No matter if you live in Stockholm, Kiruna, or Malmoe, its all the same, cold, boring, predictable, expensive and empty.